Nigerian Bottling Company Limited, NBC, is set to invest 15 million Euro in Solar Plants across Nigeria in line with its renewable drive initiative.
The Managing Director, NBC, Matthieu Seguin stated this during the Media Tour at NBC Ikeja Plant on Wednesday in Lagos.
“NBC is part of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company group, CCHBC, which has an uncompromising commitment to minimize our environmental footprint whilst enriching the communities where we operate”, he said.
“In line with this, CCHBC has instigated a set of sustainability commitments ahead of 2025 that address six major areas including the reduction of emissions, water use and stewardship, working towards a world without waste, ingredients sourcing, nutrition, people, and communities. Advancing towards these commitments, NBC has mainstreamed sustainability into every aspect of our operations. One of the major challenges facing sustainable manufacturing are Carbon emissions from non-[1]renewable energy sources”, added the MD.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, “Decarbonisation of the energy sector requires urgent action on a global scale, and while a global energy transition is underway, further action is needed to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. Renewable energy and energy efficiency measures can potentially achieve 90% of the required carbon reductions”.
He noted that NBC has eight manufacturing plants spread across the nation. He said, “Here in our Ikeja plant which is the biggest Coca-Cola manufacturing facility in Africa. You would have observed that it’s a huge construction site as we are making significant investments to make it one of the best in the world. We have taken this challenge of climate change heads-on and over the years, have been investing in solutions which have enabled us to make significant advancements in our focus areas of energy use reduction, water use reduction, emissions reduction, and waste generation reduction”.
“Today, we would like to share with you, some of the results of these investments in the area of emissions reductions, especially as it relates to renewable energy sources. Evolution to Hybrid Solar Power for our Manufacturing Operations From 2020, we commenced the process of evolving all of our manufacturing plants to be powered in part by renewable solar energy. Today, we can boast of the fact that 50% of our manufacturing plants are now powered in part by solar energy with the photovoltaic cells delivering up to 3,640-Kilowatt peak power output, KWp, to the facilities”, he noted.
“The hybrid power set up in these NBC plants allow them to substitute the national power grid and generator backups to the extent of available solar generated power, thereby reducing the consumption of power from less environmentally friendly sources. The four manufacturing plants which have since gone live with this technology are located in Maiduguri, Abuja, Asejire in Oyo State and Challawa, Kano. Further installations will continue through this year 2022, to ensure even more sustainable growth across the NBC ecosystem”.
“By the end of 2022, when the solar power installations would have been implemented in our four remaining manufacturing plants in Ikeja, Benin, Owerri and Port Harcourt; overall we will be powering our manufacturing operations with up to 15,947 KWp from Solar Energy which is equivalent to the power required to power over 2,170 standard three-bedroom homes.
“Together, the existing installations now translate to an annual carbon footprint reduction of over 3,600 tons, with the capacity for expansion in the future. Beyond the direct impact on reduced emissions, another indirect positive outcome of this project is that over 167,000 trees have been saved and through the evolution and the implementation; supported the creation of 300 jobs with an additional 480 jobs forecasted to be created in support of the system this year”, revealed MBC boss.
The Managing Director stated that another area the Company is optimizing its operations through technology is through its heavy investments in Combined Heat and Power Plants, CHP, plants. With the technology of the CHP, after electricity is generated using gas to power the gas generators in the plant, the resultant exhaust gas and heat is redirected from going into atmosphere to generate steam.
The heat from the steam according to him is used as a secondary energy source to further power some aspects of our manufacturing operations.
“Today, we have six CHP plants in five of our eight Manufacturing plants including Port-Harcourt, Ikeja, Benin, Owerri and Asejire Plants, all resulting in a significant reduction of our carbon footprints across the country. Overall, the six CHP plants generate 25.5Mw of power delivering 125,267MWh of electrical energy including 68,267MWh as steam energy, as a bye product, which without the CHP would have been produced with fossil fuel”, stated the MD.
The amount of energy generated by our CHP plants according to him is capable of powering over 11,300 standard 3-bedroom homes. These plants he said, have reduced CO2 emissions by as much as 71,883 Tons and saved over 3,333,000 trees. Collectively, the business invests over 1.7 billion naira in running the 6 CHPs annually. In a few minutes, we would take you on a tour to see one of the two CHP plants which is powering this plant.
Talking about other Innovations Supporting Our Sustainable Manufacturing Efforts, he said, “there are other sustainable manufacturing initiatives we have deployed in the recent past. In 2008, we launched the light-weighted packaging campaign, with the rollout of Ultra glass bottle, marking a major shift from the regular bottles. It has not only resulted in 16% weight reduction of our 50cl bottles and 14% of the 35cl range, but it has also led to significant CO2 emission reduction”.
“Similarly, we have embarked on fleet conversion/replacement to CNG trucks. Already, we have introduced 10 of these trucks to our fleet, which are already delivering cumulative CO2 emission savings of 17 Tons every month. Our constraint in this area is availability of CNG, which limits acceleration of the number of these vehicles in our fleet”, he noted.
“We have also started transitioning our diesel-powered forklifts to models which are powered by electricity; contributing further to our CO2 emissions savings as a business. So far 109 forklifts have transitioned, with a plan for all 200 forklifts used in the business to be transitioned by the end of this year, 2022”, the MD revealed.
“Across the CCHBC group, we have a commitment to have achieved net zero emissions by the year 2040. We are pleased that we are already working our way towards achieving this goal in NBC.
“By constantly retooling our production processes, adopting global best practices and leveraging new technology to optimize our operations, NBC aims to continue solidifying its footing as a champion of sustainable manufacturing in Nigeria”, he stressed.
