In the past few years, we witness a growing adoption and installation of solar panels on the rooftop of large food factories all across the region. With rising energy costs, this is a smart option especially for manufacturers that utilise a lot of energy/electricity in their production.
One such company is agriculture-giant Thai-based CP Foods, which has unveiled its plan to increase the installation of solar panels at 180 animal farms, feed mills, and processing plants across Thailand, with a total capacity of 65 MW by 2030. CP Foods is gearing up to reach 100 MW of solar energy in its supply chain by 2025.
CP Foods is currently in the 3rd phase of installation. In the first phase, solar panels were installed on the rooftop of its 27 factories. In the 2nd phase, it installed 10 solar farms and 2 floating solar sites.
In the current 3rd phase, CP Foods plans to install solar rooftop and solar floating systems at an additional 67 operations. Solar panels will be installed in 80 more locations in the 4th phase.
According to Peerapong Krinchai, Executive Vice President – Corporate Engineering at CP Foods, the company promotes solar energy at its operations in all forms, including solar rooftop, solar farm, and solar floating, in an effort to transition to food production that utilizes renewable energy and achieve its net-zero goal.
Meanwhile, Singapore-based soft drink player, YHS (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Yeo’s) has partnered with Cleantech Solar to develop an 800 kWp rooftop solar PV project at its manufacturing plant in Senoko.
The long-term partnership between Cleantech Solar and Yeo Hiap Seng is expected to generate approximately 18.5 GWh of renewable energy during the project’s lifetime, which amounts to a reduction of over 7.5 kilotonnes of CO2 emissions.
