In 2022, 98% of the total electricity used in Electrolux Group operations came from renewable sources. While a small proportion of non-renewable electricity is still sourced, Electrolux Group is proactively working to achieve 100% renewable electricity globally by 2025.
Electricity accounts for 60% of Electrolux Group’s total energy use and is a key component of the company’s journey to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in its operations by 2030 and across the entire value chain by 2050. This percentage will grow in the coming years as Electrolux Group operations are increasingly electrified.
Electrolux Group now has sites with solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in Italy, Thailand, Australia, Mexico, China, South Africa and Sweden. In 2022, these systems avoided greenhouse gas emissions of around 5,000 CO2e by producing around 10 GWh of electricity.
“We also source renewable electricity through different third-party verified Renewable Energy Certificates to reduce our impact and increase the demand for renewable energy around the world,” says Tomas Dahlman, Director Global Energy.
The company is also looking into the potential for renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) both on and off Electrolux Group sites where a third-party developer installs, owns and operates the wind or large-scale solar PV system. The ambition is to start the first PPA in 2023.
Toward 100% renewable electricity and energy
Today, 40% of the company’s total energy is sourced mainly from natural gas, with some energy-intensive processes, such as enameling ovens and painting, currently requiring natural gas due to financial and technical limitations and the limited supply of renewable electricity in some markets.
“A temporary solution is replacing natural gas with biogas, which we have recently piloted at some sites, such as São Carlos in Brazil, and are exploring opportunities in Italy,” says Dahlman. “But the only long-term zero-carbon solution is completely switching to 100% renewable energy.”
In 2022, the plant in Cerreto d’Esi, Italy, became the first Electrolux Group plant to fully replace fossil fuels with renewable electricity in its manufacturing operations. This means that zero greenhouse gas emissions have been emitted from the energy used to power manufacturing processes at the Cerreto d’Esi plant since October 2022.
