"By purchasing green electricity directly and using photovoltaics for its own power generation, Volvo Taizhou plant has achieved 100% carbon neutrality in electricity." Falk Las Oskar, general manager of Volvo Cars Taizhou plant, said in an interview with a reporter from China Business News recently.
At present, Volvo Taizhou plant mainly produces Volvo XC40, XC40 Recharge pure electric vehicles, etc. About 80% of its production capacity is used for electric vehicle production. It also has Volvo Cars' first battery workshop outside of Europe.
According to previous research results of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), although electric vehicles emit less carbon during use, their manufacturing process carbon emissions are indeed higher than traditional fuel vehicles.
This gap is mainly due to the extensive use of aluminum bodies in electric vehicles and the battery production process.
Affected by the above factors, with the increase in the production and sales scale of electric vehicles, compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the carbon emission of automobile manufacturing has also become one of the core concerns of the automobile industry to achieve overall carbon neutrality.
From a global perspective, multinational companies including Daimler, Volkswagen, BMW, Volvo, GM, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Bosch, etc. have put forward their own carbon neutrality goals, and almost all of the goals mentioned the production process. carbon reduction measures.
According to statistics, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Audi, Renault, and GM have also specifically proposed a timetable for achieving carbon neutrality in factories. Among them, Volvo plans to take the lead in achieving zero carbon emissions at the manufacturing end by 2025 and climate zero by 2040. load.
"Energy greening determines the carbon emissions in the upstream manufacturing end of automobiles and in the field of road transportation. The three parties must cooperate in an all-round way to promote the realization of the 'dual carbon' goal." Wang Hewu, deputy secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, told the media that based on the green energy supply to realize low-carbon automobile manufacturing.
Factories can increase the proportion of green energy use through internal self-built photovoltaic wind power systems and external procurement of green power.
Oskar told reporters that Volvo's Taizhou plant adopted a similar approach to the above, that is, it cooperates with some suppliers to directly purchase green electricity. Volvo's Chengdu and Daqing plants have implemented similar measures.
In addition, the Taizhou factory also uses photovoltaics for its own power generation, and the roof of the factory is covered with photovoltaic power generation panels.
At the same time, it also uses photovoltaic power generation panels on a large scale in parking lots and vehicle delivery yards.
At present, the clean energy utilization rate of the plant is 46%.
However, there is still a certain gap between the carbon neutrality of electricity and the true carbon neutrality of factories.
Oskar noted that Volvo's factory carbon neutrality means that there is no net increase in recorded greenhouse gas emissions due to the electricity and heating used by the factory.
In the heating system, Volvo is also considering the use of biomass energy or green electricity to drive heating, which will also help it achieve carbon neutrality in production and operations globally by 2025.
In order to achieve Volvo's longer-term goal of climate neutrality, it is also necessary to take into account the situation of the entire supply chain, such as the procurement department to achieve better cooperation with suppliers.
Finally, Oskar told reporters that although the cost of direct purchase of green electricity will be a few percentage points higher, the overall cost is still relatively balanced. If considering the long-term, he still hopes to use its own energy in the factory, which is also its orientation. Solutions to be explored in the future.
Author: Xiao Yisi