
Circular Solutions
The path to a sustainable, net-zero future for the chemical industry is paved with challenges – and also opportunities.
The path to a sustainable, net-zero future for the chemical industry is paved with challenges – and also opportunities.
The path to a sustainable, net-zero future for the chemical industry is paved with challenges – and also opportunities.
French industrial gases company Air Liquide and South African energy company Sasol have signed a power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Enel Green Power for the long term supply of an additional capacity of 110 MW of renewable power to Sasol’s Secunda site in South Africa.
Arkema has signed long term renewable energy agreements for its US sites in Calvert City, Kentucky, Beaumont, Texas, Chatham, Virginia, and West Chester, Pennsylvania, as well as for all Bostik sites in the United States. The company said that these agreements are part of its climate plan.
Rising demand for sustainability-related products will create a huge growth opportunity for chemical companies.
German engineering plastics producer Covestro has signed a 90 megawatt (MW) virtual power purchase agreement (vPPA) with Danish renewables producer Ørsted for its US site at Baytown, Texas.
In what it calls another major step toward implementing its sustainability strategy, Germany’s Merck has signed a 16-year, off-site, virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Recurrent Energy for its Liberty County Solar project northeast of Houston Texas, in the US.
Chemical producer LyondellBasell has signed five 15-year solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Spanish renewable energy producer Grenergy. The purchases cover the supply of energy from the La Cereal solar farm project in Spain, which is expected to be operational at the end of 2025.
Solvay has agreed with EnergyRe to buy all renewable energy certificates generated by the latter’s Lone Star Solar project in Calhoun County, South Carolina, USA.
Inovyn, PVC-producing subsidiary of Ineos, has inked two long-term power supply deals with Norway’s Statkraft, which claims to be Europe’s largest renewables producer. From May, Inovyn will draw 100 MW of exclusively renewable energy from Statkraft for an annual renewable energy production of 876 GWh per year and an additional 30 MW (263 GWh) from 2026.
Sasol has signed two separate agreements for the supply of renewable energy to its sites in Sasolburg and Secunda in South Africa.
Polish companies Energy Group and Hynfra have signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to develop a project that would produce green hydrogen, green ammonia and methanol. The companies estimate the cost of the project to be more than €22 billion.
Germany has tapped US industrial gases producer Air Products and Oiltanking Deutschland, part of the Mabanaft group, to realise the country’s first large-scale, green energy project as it transitions toward making hydrogen the backbone of its renewable energy strategy.
Michael Bloomberg, the founder of US-based financial, software, data and media group Bloomberg LP and a United Nations special envoy on climate ambition and solutions, has launched a campaign to stop the expansion of petrochemicals and plastics production in the US.
As one of the BASF group’s latest steps to increase sustainability and move closer to net zero emissions, US subsidiary BASF Corporation is embracing one of the newest instruments popular with US industry, virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs).
In its drive to become a climate-neutral company, Germany-based oxo-chemicals specialist OQ Chemical has announced it will switch all of its worldwide production sites to run on electricity from renewable sources in the medium term.
LyondellBasell (LYB) has pledged to cover at least 50% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030.
The EU Commission’s ambitious plan for a European Green Deal, launched shortly before the pandemic struck in early 2020, aims to make the continent the world’s first climate-neutral region by 2050. The goals spelled out in January last year call for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% up to 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
Europe wants to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and decouple its economic growth from the consumption of natural resources – this is what the members of the European Union committed to in the so-called Green Deal in December 2019.