Rooftop Solar Projects Help Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This project contributes to the education of greenhouse gas emissions and advances our company’s goal to reduce more than 70% absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 2030.

Sustainability is a key element in our business purpose and integral to our company’s growth and innovation. Having set goals to source 80% renewable electricity by 2025 and reduce more than 70% absolute GHG emissions for Scopes 1 and 2 by 2030, we have already made significant progress. From fiscal year 2022 to 2023, we successfully reduced direct Scope 1 emissions by 23% and decreased indirect Scope 2 emissions from purchased energy by 46%. Our China team has been exploring various programs to drive this progress further and recently achieved outstanding results through the installation of rooftop solar panels at multiple sites.

Led by our China facility team, the Appliances Qingdao Plant completed our first rooftop solar project in 2022. By the end of 2023, two more factories in China installed solar panels and connected to the power grid for green energy generation. The Energy plant in Kunshan finalized a solar project with 4,200 square meters of photovoltaic panels and 0.6 megawatt (MWp) energy capacity. It is expected to reduce approximately 427 ton of CO2 per year. The rooftop solar project at our Appliances Shanghai site was also put into operation. The site installed about 1,300 square meters of photovoltaic panels, which can produce approximately 0.2 megawatt-hour (MWH) per year of renewable energy. The project is expected to reduce approximately 84 tons of carbon emission in its first year.

“With the power connection of the Shanghai site, the total installed capacity of solar projects in China has reached 2.4 MWp with a total utilized roof area of 21,500 square meters, reducing carbon emissions by more than 2,000 tons,” said Shaojie Yu, manager facilities in China, who is also leading the regional solar projects. “At the same time, TE Appliances Qingdao is the first TE site in China to install solar panels, has been using them for a whole year as of October 2023. The actual carbon emissions were reduced by more than 1,000 tons in this period.”

Our Appliances Qingdao site was not only the first site to launch the rooftop solar project, but also the largest TE installed site in China. “We are honored to be the first TE site in China to have installed solar panels and help provide our useful experience and learnings for the development of subsequent projects,” said Zhemeng Liu, manager business support and leader of the solar project at the Appliances Qingdao site. “During the past year, all indicators showed that the project is running well. We can see that it is a valuable project regarding both cost management and our commitment to reduce environmental impact.” 

In addition to the Qingdao, Kunshan and Shanghai sites, solar projects at our Industrial Xiamen and Industrial & Commercial Transportation Weifang sites are also in active progress. Our China team expects that the rooftop solar panel projects will continue to help TE achieve stronger greenhouse gas reduction goals in the future.