My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: @GM and Enel Green Power 34 MW Wind Turbine Plant – How Large Companies are benefitting from Alternative Energy

Monday, March 30, 2015

@GM and Enel Green Power 34 MW Wind Turbine Plant – How Large Companies are benefitting from Alternative Energy

GM (General Motors) is now following in the footsteps of Apple it relates to an investment in Alternative Energy as noted earlier on my blog article entitled “Apple's US$848 million 1,300-acre Solar Farm - How First Solar is decoupling Green Apple from the Grid using Renewable Energy”.

They've decided to some of their money into adding some 34 MW of Power to a Wind Farm in Mexico as reported in the article “Why GM Wants To Buy Wind Energy”, published 3/24/2015 by Heather Clancy, Forbes.



Their press Release on their GM Blog entitled “Wind Power to Debut on GM’s Renewable Energy Roster” give a lot more details on their plans for Renewable Energy usage by the year 2020. GM entered into a Power purchase agreement with Enel Green Power, with is the Renewable energy part of the Enel Group, are the contractors responsible for the construction and maintenance of the Palo Alto, Mexico.

The site has great wind and most likely cheap Mexican labour along with Tax breaks, according to GM Global Manager of Renewable Energy Rob Threlkeld, quote: “Mexico is an ideal location for our first wind project. Energy is fed to a national grid, making it easier to reduce or add energy capacity at a facility. There’s also a good business case as prices for traditional power are about a third greater than the United States”.

GM and Enel Green Power 34 MW Wind Turbine Plant – How Large Companies are benefitting from Alternative Energy

Currently GM Renewable Energy usage looks as thus:

1.      9% of their Power comes from Renewable Energy
2.      104 MW of power from solar, landfill gas and waste to energy

After the 34MW of Wind Power is added, it will look as thus:

1.      12% of their Power comes from Renewable Energy
2.      138 MW of power from solar, landfill gas, Waste to Energy and Wind Energy

This will help them to achieve their 2020 goals with the Wind Energy being put to good productive use:

1.      75% to power most of GM’s Toluca Complex sitting on 104 acres
2.      25% to power Silao, San Luis Potosi and Ramos Arizpe complexes

Good to note here that 34 MW is roughly about seventeen (17) Turbines, based on the configurations being used by GM.



Once completed in the next four (4) years, this will be GM's largest usage of Renewable Energy and will help GM reduce their carbon footprint by some 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

That’s basically a lot of Electricity bills and usage of oil save right there, more than economic justification for GM to go Renewable in a big way!



Hope this means that their soon-to-be launched 2016 Chevy Bolt All-Electric Vehicle will be cheaper as well as noted in my blog article entitled “US$30,000 2016 Chevrolet Bolt - How GM plans to innovate All-Electric Vehicles to avoid Tesla and Nissan beating them”.

A rooftop Garden, though, like Method, a Organic Cleaning Product company as detailed in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “Gotham Greens now the Largest Rooftop Greenhouse – Alternative Hydroponics Farming Path” would be a nice organic touch!

Here’s the link:




No comments: