Wisconsin wind power for Windex
The family-owned parent company for dozens of well-known brands such as Windex, Pledge, Raid, Shout and Ziploc is planning to opt for wind power at its largest manufacturing plant in Mt. Pleasant, Wis.
SC Johnson received the clearance to construct two wind turbines on the Waxdale facility (as big as 36 football fields) that will pick up approximately 15 percent of the site's electricity consumption needs. The remaining power will be generated by two co-generation units installed during the past decade. Renewable energy created by landfill gas will be used for about 45 percent of the generation needs; methane will also be used to power the generation units.
Together, the co-generation units will produce about 50 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.
"When completed, the addition of these wind turbines will enable us to generate on average 100 percent of our electrical energy on-site at Waxdale, with approximately 60 percent of it coming from renewable sources," said SC Johnson Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson.
This is by no means the first renewable energy generation investment by SC Johnson. The company ranks in the top 10 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of leading U.S. on-site corporate energy producers. The company uses three SWIFT miniature wind turbines at is headquarters in Racine, Wis., and installed another three in May at its sales office in Lowell, Ark. SC Johnson constructed a 262-foot-tall wind turbine in the Netherlands in 2009; the technology products about 6 million kilowatt-hours of power annually.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com