HELSINKI - Nonwovens manufacturer Suominen is continuing with its plan to shift to fossil-free electricity in all its European plants with the installation of a new solar power plant at its facility in Alicante, Spain.

The plant, which includes 2,222 solar panels with a capacity of 1MW will provide clean, fossil-free electricity supply to the Alicante production site and is part of the company's previously announced strategy t reduce its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across its European sites.

“The location of our production site in Alicante is excellent for a solar plant. The solar plant is expected to provide a minimum of 8% and a maximum of 13.5% of the total electricity consumption at the production site,” said Juan Carlos Esteve, Director, HSEQ. “The shift towards sustainable energy sources is a step forward for us but other measures remain important as well. For example, improvements in the energy efficiency have a direct impact on our emissions.”

Suominen aims to reduce its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions respectively by 20% per ton of product by 2025, compared to the base year of 2019. In 2021, our energy consumption decreased by 7.1% and greenhouse gas emissions by 8.8% per ton of product, compared to the base year 2019.