General Motors has acquired enough new solar energy to provide the amount of energy needed to power three of the company’s assembly plants, including its facility in Wentzville.
The deal is its largest-ever purchase of renewable energy, GM said.
In line with its “ongoing push” to lean into renewable energy, the Detroit-based auto giant said last week that it entered a 15-year power purchase agreement with NorthStar Clean Energy, the developer of a 180-megawatt solar project in Newport, Arkansas.
The completed solar project generates enough energy to power 30,000 homes a year. Or, relative to GM’s power needs, the facility is able to produce enough electricity for the company’s Wentzville assembly plant, and two others in Lansing, Michigan.
The company aims to acquire enough renewable electricity to match the power needs of all its U.S. sites by 2025, before reaching the same milestone for its global sites by 2035. GM has already inked agreements to secure 100% of its domestic energy needs from renewable sources, but is still waiting for much of it to become operational. As of last year, only 39% of that generation had so far been built and publicly announced.
And by 2040, the company has a goal to be entirely carbon neutral across its operations, supply chain and products — including the elimination of tailpipe emissions from “light-duty” vehicles.
For GM, buying renewable energy is not just done for environmental reasons — it also carries economic appeal. Executives say that while pursuing environmental sustainability goals is important, “we want to do it in a way that sustains our company, too,” said Rob Threlkeld, GM’s director of global energy strategy, in an interview with the Post-Dispatch.
Solar and wind, for instance, are the “lowest-cost generation resources,” he said. And deals like the new power purchase agreement help the company lock in long-term “pricing certainty” for its electricity costs, he added. GM would not disclose the deal’s financial terms.
The allure of renewable energy is strong enough for GM to make major — and even industry-leading — investments. GM says that, in 2023, it became the leading buyer of renewable power purchase agreements among all manufacturing companies, according to a company report from last year that cites Bloomberg data.
The company now has 17 renewable energy projects spread across 11 states — providing roughly an even mix of wind and solar generation, Threlkeld said. None of the projects are in Missouri, but they can be found in a handful of neighboring states.
And the list of projects is poised to grow, with additional announcements looming.
“We’ve secured enough load, we just haven’t announced all of it yet,” said Threlkeld. “More to come.”
