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Nestlé Fawdon completes the biggest solar panel installation in the North East of England

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children open solar panel

Nestlé Fawdon, the home of Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles, Rolo, Toffee Crisp and Caramac is now also home to the largest solar panel installation in the North East of England.

The factory welcomed 20 students from Malvin’s Close Primary Academy in Northumberland to the official opening of the 1,970 solar panels installation. During their visit the pupils learnt about the importance of renewable energy and how the panels which are situated on the roof and to the rear of the factory work.

solar panel

The half a MegaWatt in size installation will generate approximately 1.5 per cent of the total energy usage at the site. This is the equivalent of the energy needed to power up to 125 average households in the UK for a year.

All the electricity produced by this installation, along with the renewable electricity generated from the onsite anaerobic digestion plant will be fed directly to the factory network. As part of Nestlé UK’s Green Transport Plan the factory has been actively engaging its employees in making the move to electric vehicles. The Fawdon site has 10 charging points linked into the factory network, allowing the employees to use renewable energy to power their vehicles.

The solar panels will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide the factory produces by 225,000kg a year, the same amount produced by 450 average cars in a year, or produced during 89 10 hour flights, or by boiling 16,000,000 kettles.

The solar panel project at Fawdon forms part of Nestlé UK’s roadmap to support the company’s global commitment to procure 100 per cent of electrical energy from renewable power sources and the company’s UK carbon reduction target of 40 per cent by 2020.

Andrew Griffiths, Head of Environmental Sustainability, Nestlé UK & Ireland said:

“Nestlé is continuously making efforts to improve the environmental performance of our operations. As part of our global commitment to procure 100 per cent of electrical energy from renewable sources we are looking at potential solar-powered sources on a site-by-site basis.

“Fawdon is our first factory in the UK & Ireland to trial solar power on this scale and we’re looking forward to see how it performs.  We’re assessing output and performance to determine whether we roll it out across the whole of the UK.”

Nestlé is committed to climate change leadership and has set targets to achieve 100 percent renewable energy across their operations, through RE100, a global initiative to engage, support and showcase influential companies committed to using 100 percent renewable power that now involves more than 30 companies globally.

 ENDS
For more information, please contact Nestlé Press Office on 020 8667 6005 [email protected]