AALST – Ontex, the Belgium-headquartered provider of personal hygiene products, has broken ground on what will be Italy’s largest solar power project with on-site power consumption.
The company’s factory in Ortona, Abruzzo will produce 11.6 GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the yearly consumption of more than 3,500 households.
Ontex factories in Italy and eight other European countries run on 100% electricity from renewable sources and the company is installing solar power installations in Europe and the Americas to produce more energy on-site.
“As demand for sustainably produced electricity is expected to increase, we prefer to have direct access to electricity that is produced on-site in a sustainable way,” said Annick De Poorter, Ontex executive vice president for R&D and sustainability. “We can now produce more than a quarter of the electricity we need to manufacture essential hygiene goods at our factory in Italy. This is another step towards our goal to have carbon neutral operations by 2030. We will reach this goal through on-site renewable energy production, energy savings, purchasing energy from renewable sources, and carbon offsets via reforestation projects.”
The solar system was developed and financed by the company Menapy, which also installed solar power solutions for Ontex in Eeklo, Belgium and Segovia, Spain.
“This project marks an important milestone for Menapy in the Italian market,” said Federico Dotto, country manager for Menapy Italia. “It crystallizes our long-term experience in industrial rooftop and solar projects in Europe and it confirms that our ‘Solar as a Service’ can bring important added value to high-consuming industries in Italy. Ontex has clear and ambitious goals in sustainability and saving on energy costs, and with this project we help them achieve both, without the investment.”
Construction is expected to take around six months and is scheduled to end during the first months of 2022, allowing for the production of personal hygiene products with solar power from the spring of 2022.
With expertise in baby care, feminine care and adult care. Ontex products are distributed in more than 110 countries through Ontex brands such as BBTips, BioBaby, Pompom, Bigfral, CanBebe, CanPed, iD and Serenity, as well as leading retailer brands.
Employing some 10,000 people all over the world, Ontex has a presence in 21 countries.
