The technology enterprise Rheinmetall AG has taken a further step on the path to achieving climate neutrality by 2035, its stated goal. Thanks to the Group’s strong commitment and the support of local authorities, last summer a large solar power plant was successfully installed on the roofs of factory halls at Rheinmetall subsidiary Pierburg SA in Abadanio, Spain.
The 1,635 solar modules installed on the roof are now producing solar power. Annual output is expected to be in the region of 730,000 kWh. According to company calculations, this sustainably generated energy will cut the plant’s climate-harmful CO2 emissions by 175 tons annually.
For the past twelve years, the company has been systematically pursuing a long-term action plan in Spain to reduce its climate footprint, having conducted its first energy audit in 2009. Ever since, the company has done its utmost to be an efficient producer while simultaneously protecting the environment and reducing emissions. Over the years, in addition to the latest installation, the company has successfully implemented measures that have also enhanced the efficiency and sustainability of other industrial processes. These include the introduction of a geothermal exchange system, the insulation of pipes, automatic control systems for fan heaters, automatic compressed air control systems and compressed air systems for leak detection, LED technology and intelligent lighting systems (KNX), as well as coolant filtration and briquetting systems.
This year, the plant has won acclaim from various private and public sector bodies for its commitment and ongoing successful implementation of measures to optimize the reduction of CO2 emissions. In 2014 Pierburg in Spain received special recognition from the Energy Department of the Basque Government, and a year later its energy management system was recognized for good practice as part of the EFQM award. And in 2016 the plant won special recognition from the CEBEC, the confederation of the most important companies in the Province of Bizkaia.
This is fantastic news! Sure these panels will be built in polluting Chinese factories with slave labor and shipped across the globe in diesel powered ships and sure Germany gets less sunshine and almost as much snow as Buffalo, NY each year and sure this is obviously corporate genuflecting to Olaf Scholz and his new BFF / tyrannical dictator of China Xi…but…how else is Germany going to power its defense industrial base after they ignored the warning of the entire world when they tied their energy future to their #1 strategic enemy (Russia) and voluntarily closed most of the nuclear power plants (soon to be all) and intentionally knee caped their economic future with unreliable solar and wind power. Obviously doubling down on a bad policy is how you progress into a new and better Brave New World. To all the nay sayers, in no way is this the a harbinger of the end of a modern industrial Germany or indicative of continued short sighted thinking that got Europe into this mess in the first place. What matters is that we feel good about this obviously bad decision. Because good feelings solve real problems.
Interesting that you don’t believe in the free market approach to business decisions by shareholders.
Firstly, I do not support the purchase of products manufactured via slave labor under the direct supervision of the very country that our governments (and this corporations products) are trying to oppose. I don’t care if it was the CEO, COO, the board or the shareholders who pushed for this. Subsidizing the industrial base of an evil government is wrong. I expect next you will tell me how corporations are people too.
You don’t like China. I don’t like China either. China uses the money we pay them to project power against us, and exploits children to make the things we buy. But if you don’t buy solar panels made in China, you’re going to buy natural gas from Russia, and Russia will use the money you pay them to project power against us, and to bomb Ukranian civilian targets. Or you can buy oil from Saudi Arabia, and they’ll use the money you pay them to fund al Qaeda and ISIS to attack our civilians.
Or build nuke fission plants – probably not a bad idea (you seem to suggest it), but you’ll be dealing with the waste for generations. Clean fusion just doesn’t exist yet.
Ain’t no free lunch. If this business is making profit maximizing decisions by going solar, good for them.