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Renewable energy workshops help Trivium go solar
Discover how Trivium Packaging implemented solar to align with their commitment to reduce their carbon footprint 30% by 2030 – and how they worked with Enel North America to turn their sustainability pledges into carbon-reduction action.
Highlights
Industry
Manufacturing
10-year PPA
meets corporate sustainability and financial goals
End-to-end
process encompassed initial site inspections through final contracting
RE workshops
educated participants, driving project alignment
Overview
Trivium Packaging is a global leader in high quality and infinitely recyclable metal packaging. The company was formed by a merger of industry leaders Exal Corporation and Ardagh’s Global Food & Specialty business, taking on a new name with 125 years of experience in packaging. Trivium Packaging offers customers around the world innovative and sustainable packaging solutions supported by scalable production and outstanding customer service.
Their Story
The goal: carbon reduction
After announcing ambitious sustainability goals, including a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint 30% by 2030, Trivium needed a partner that could help turn sustainability pledges into carbon-reduction action. The company wanted to explore power purchase agreements (PPA), but needed a partner with the experience and expertise to ensure a successful project.
The solution: sustainability workshop and PPAs
Trivium already worked with Enel on both demand response programs and energy procurement for multiple U.S. sites. After seeing success in both areas for many years, they looked to Enel to help them with their PPA.
The Enel Customer Insights team huddled with Trivium’s energy, sustainability, and business leaders to hatch a plan centered on solar power, soon embarking on a thorough end-to-end process.
The process
1. Sustainability workshops
Enel’s process begins with Renewable Energy Workshops with Trivium decision-makers and staff to educate, explore options, and determine goals.
2. PPA planning
Next, they began planning through site inspections and financial analyses to determine the viability of an on-site solar deployment, and crafting an RFI to vet solar developers and terms. Aided by Enel’s experience with solar developers, they settled on the physical, financial, and environmental viability of on-site solar at one of Trivium’s manufacturing facilities, while ensuring a robust field of solar-developer candidates.
3. RFP development
Armed with data from the RFI and given the green light by Trivium, Enel developed an RFP for a power purchase agreement (PPA), bringing interested solar developers into a live auction to bid against each other for the business.
The ensuing online auctions, run on Enel’s award-winning Energy Exchange platform, enabled Enel to test various financial and product terms in a manner fully transparent to Trivium. This allowed Trivium, with Enel’s help, to select the right developer with the best offer. Sealing the deal, Enel worked closely with Trivium to ensure the final contract met its needs.
4. Breaking ground on solar
As a result, Trivium successfully broke ground on its first on-site solar project in the U.S. The resulting PPA enabled Trivium to do so without any up-front capital expenditure while locking in a favorable electricity rate that will save Trivium money, act as a hedge against electric-rate volatility, and, most importantly, secure the renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the project, dramatically reducing the company’s carbon footprint. In fact, the process worked so well, Trivium is intent on replicating it as the company eyes additional on-site solar opportunities around the U.S.