Media Release by Arnott's Group and CleanPeak Energy
The Arnott’s Group, one of Australia’s most iconic food manufacturers and CleanPeak Energy, a specialist distributed renewable energy company, have signed an agreement to transition the world-class Huntingwood manufacturing facility to 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2029.
The project, based in Sydney’s western suburbs, is expected to be one of Australia’s largest integrated behind-the-meter solar and battery installations.
The 44,000sqm manufacturing facility operates 24 hours, seven days a week, running five different automated manufacturing lines, producing around 53 per cent of The Group’s total biscuit volume. The site employs over 400 people and bakes around 56 million kilograms of biscuits annually, including some of Australia’s favourites like Tim Tam, Shapes and Jatz.
CleanPeak will install a 4.1 MW rooftop solar system which will operate alongside a 15 MWh battery energy storage system, generating more than 5.25 GWh of renewable electricity. CleanPeak will then source an additional 17.3 GWh of mixed renewable and non-renewable electricity required for the site, progressively moving to renewable electricity from 2023, and reaching 100 per cent by 2029.
The rooftop of the multi-building facility will house around 10,000 panels and be connected to inverters and a battery energy storage system. The integrated solar and battery assets will operate to smooth the solar output each day in order to match the energy usage of the site.
The Arnott’s Group, supported by energy consultant World Kinect Energy Services, embarked on the journey to transition to renewable electricity across their operations over 12 months ago. CleanPeak was selected as The Group’s partner to deliver an onsite solution and complement this with a multi-year in-front-of-meter energy offer that will allow the site to transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity operations in a cost-effective manner. CleanPeak’s capital investment will give the Arnott’s Group certainty over the site’s electricity costs for the next seven years.
Building works will begin in the coming months, with the installation due to be fully operational by the end of 2023. The project will be delivered without interrupting the production facility’s operating schedule and will be connected to the site’s HV switchboards.
Simon Lowden, Arnott’s Group Chief Transformation Officer, said “This agreement allows us to make significant progress towards achieving our Group net-zero targets that we’ve set ourselves.”
It offers greater certainty over our electricity prices, is affordable and efficient, and is just one of the tools we’re investing in to get to meet our net zero commitment. We are also investing in large-scale energy monitoring trials and working with our suppliers to better understand their emission profiles.”
Philip Graham, CleanPeak CEO said, “We are delighted to assist Australian companies to achieve net zero at their facilities, by managing high-quality solar and battery assets behind the meter and integrating them with our portfolio of renewable assets. We’re able to offer reliable, firm renewables, that are more cost-effective than current grid contracts.”
From 1 January 2023, Clean Peak will become the energy retailer for The Group’s Huntingwood manufacturing site. They will then commence installation of the onsite solar system, as part of stage 1 of the project. Stage 2 of the project will involve the battery storage asset which will be operational in the 2nd half of 2023.
The onsite solar system will supply around 23 per cent of the site’s electricity needs, with the remaining coming from a mix of renewable and non-renewable sources, and progressively from CleanPeak’s renewable projects due to be operational from 2023.
CleanPeak will also build a 1.3MW rooftop solar asset at The Arnott’s Group’s Virginia site in Queensland.
Philip Graham said “It’s terrific to see tier-one industrial companies who have large rooftops in metropolitan areas showing the leadership needed to achieve the renewable energy transition. These deals are very complex in a manufacturing environment as its imperative to deliver the system without impacting production, and we congratulate The Arnott’s Group’s focus and commitment to achieving what really is commercial sustainability in action.”
