Toyota Argentina’s manufacturing plant in Zárate will operate with green electricity from 100% renewable energy

Through a recently signed Power Purchase Agreement with the energy company YPF Luz, Toyota Argentina will be fully supplied with renewable wind energy.

Daniel Herrero, President of Toyota Argentina (left) and Miguel Gutiérrez, President of YPF (right)

Buenos Aires, August 2018 — Daniel Herrero, President of Toyota Argentina, and Miguel Gutiérrez, President of YPF, the largest energy company in the country, announced that Toyota will begin to operate its Zárate plant with renewable energy supplied by YPF Luz, as part of an arrangement between both companies.

Sooner than a year and a half the Toyota plant in Buenos Aires Province—which was responsible for 26% of the production and 41% of the exports of Argentina’s automotive sector in 2017—will produce its vehicles with green electricity from 100% renewable energy. This measure takes place on the company’s sustainability and environmental program for its Zárate plant, which fabricated more than 125,000 units last year and aims to set a new record this year with 140,000 units.

The renewable energy supply contract establishes a duration of ten years, whose first stage will deliver 25% of the renewable energy, followed by a second stage beginning in 2020, when 100% of the company’s electricity needs, equivalent to 76,000 MWh/year, will come from renewable source.

“This initiative is a part of Toyota’s 2050 Environmental Challenge that aims to reduce to zero the impact from the manufacture and use of our vehicles. Reducing CO2 emissions and introducing renewable energies represent the basics of our five-year Energy Action Plan. This will allow us to greatly exceed our global goals by using 100% clean electricity by 2020,” assured Daniel Herrero, President of Toyota Argentina.

Furthermore, YPF President Miguel Gutiérrez stated, “It is a great pride for YPF to be chosen as Toyota’s provider of renewable energy. YPF began providing electricity five years ago, and today it leads the renewable energy market as a reliable company chosen by top global industrial customers.”

YPF Luz will supply Toyota’s Zárate plant with energy from the 100 MW Manantiales Behr Wind Farm in the first stage, soon to be inaugurated in Chubut, and with energy from the 122 MW Los Teros Wind Farm, located in Azul, which will be opened toward the end of 2019 for the second stage. YPF Luz focuses on providing industrial customers like Toyota with reliable, efficient and sustainable energy solutions available in plans that adapt to their needs.

With this initiative, Toyota will save the equivalent of 7,068 m3 of diesel or 11.9 million m3 of natural gas every year that would be required to generate the same amount of energy in a thermoelectric plant. This implies reducing CO2 emissions by 40,660 tons.

This is equivalent to the level of consumption of 21,111 households.

Toyota’s operations are guided by an ambitious series of environmental goals that the company aims to achieve by 2050 to contribute to global sustainability. Before these key global challenges, such as climate change, water scarcity, depletion of resources and the reduction of biodiversity, the Toyota 2050 Environmental Challenge aspires to reduce the impact of both the manufacture and use of motor vehicles.

(2018/09/18)"

Source: Toyota-global