A wind farm will power a Honda car manufacturing facility in Brazil. Honda has a car assembly plant in Sumare, Sao Paulo. According to Wikipedia, Honda Civics and Fits are assembled there. The wind farm that will soon power this facility is located in the most southern part in Xangri-la, hundreds of miles away, and has nine 3 MW turbines. It is expected the farm will generate all the electricity required for Honda’s annual car manufacturing in Brazil. The goal is to reduce the car factory’s CO2 emissions, as Honda wants to achieve an overall 30% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020.
Honda has already been successful when it has added wind power to its manufacturing operations. At an Ohio plant, two wind turbines were installed and their output surpassed expectations. “The wind turbines have exceeded the projected power output figures by 6.3 percent, and have contributed toward reducing the CO2 emissions of power production, helping Honda reach its voluntary goals to reduce the environmental impact of its products and manufacturing operations by 2020.”
It was expected they would provide about 10% of the Ohio plant’s electricity, but at times that figure has been a little over 16%.
It might not seem as though nine wind turbines would generate enough electricity to power the Brazil Honda auto plant, but if two in America can produce 10–16%, then it seems reasonable to estimate that nine might actually be that productive. (Of course, it depends upon how much electricity each plant uses, as well as wind resource and technology factors.)
With wind power being the cheapest option for new electricity in many places, and certainly cheaper than electricity from the grid, it simply might be a “no-brainer” to invest in more wind power for some of these huge corporations.
Critics of renewable energy often try to dismiss it as being too expensive, or only for “enviros,” but if that were the case why are more industrial corporations investing in it? (A steel plant in Alabama gets much of its electricity from solar power, for example.) Plus, you can just look at the numbers.
Image: Ana Paula Hirama
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