Manufacturing in Dresden, Zwickau and Chemnitz purchase electric power from renewable sources. Wayne Gerdes – CleanMPG – Dec. 22, 2017 Hydro at the forefront VW is stepping up its use of renewable energy for vehicle production and further reduce its environmental footprint. Starting this year, three VW production facilities at Sachsen have been supplied with VW Naturstrom electric power from 100% renewable sources by VW Kraftwerk GmbH. I looked up what Naturstrom meant and according to Wiki, Naturstrom AG was founded in 1998 as a supplier of renewable energy for private and commercial use beginning in 1999. This made Naturstrom AG one of the first independent green electricity dealers in Germany supplying approximately 260,000 customers in Germany. I am not sure what this term has to do with VW but it has an environmentally friendly ring to it. VW is playing its part in meeting the VW global targets under its Think Blue brand strategy. Program are being designed to produce each vehicle and component in a way which is 45 percent more environmentally compatible in 2025 than the base year of 2010. Volkswagen Naturstrom is TÜV-certified eco-power generated at the hydropower plants of the Viennese energy supplier Verbund in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria. The documentation is kept by the German Federal Environmental Protection Agency (UBA). Verbund has cooperated with VW Kraftwerk since 2011 and cooperation was extended until 2025 this year. Beginning in 2018 onwards, VW e-Golf production at the Dresden plant will be entirely carbon-neutral!!! reducing an estimated 3,600 metric tons of CO2 heading into the atmosphere each year. The plant has also changed over to carbon-neutral heating. For this purpose, VW Kraftwerk will cooperate with the South Pole Group (SPG), the world's largest developer of climate protection projects: 400 metric tons of CO2 otherwise produced by heating using fossil fuels are compensated for by CO2 savings at other points in the production process. VW Kraftwerk will purchase Gold Standard climate certificates earned by the sustainability projects of SPG supported by carbon credits. In the case of Dresden, this refers to climate projects in China and a reforestation project in Brazil. At the Chemnitz engine plant, electric power purchasing has been changed over entirely to Volkswagen Naturstrom, resulting in a CO2 saving of about 32,000 metric tons per year. At the Zwickau vehicle plant, where the Golf, Golf Estate and Passat Estate, Bentley and Lamborghini body shells are produced, about half of the power used will be generated by a compact cogeneration plant. The other half will be covered by Volkswagen Naturstrom generated by hydropower plants. This approach will save up to 44,000 of CO2 emissions per year. VW now has 11 plants in Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, Anchieta, Taubaté, Curitiba and São Carlos plants in Brazil, Bratislava and Martin in Slovakia, Pamplona in Spain and Polkowice in Poland purchasing carbon-neutral power from renewable sources. The Think Blue initiative is committed to improving energy efficiency and to using power from renewable sources globally. Currently, approximately one third of the electric power used by VW worldwide comes from renewable sources.
