Volvo Cars and Stora Enso today are starting to operate a hot water pipeline between their manufacturing sites in Ghent, Belgium. Bart Tommelein, the minister of Energy of the Flemish Government, opened the valves together with Eric Van Landeghem and Chris De Hollander, managing directors of Volvo Car Gent and Stora Enso Langerbrugge respectively.
The district heating solution, developed over the last two years, will enable an optimised exchange of energy streams between two of the largest Nordic companies operating in Belgium. As a result, Volvo Cars will substantially reduce its use of fossil fuels for heating purposes, cutting CO2 emissions and energy costs.
The use of district heating will save 15,000 tonnes CO2 per year (which is roughly equivalent to the absorption capacity of 75,000 trees), a net decrease of more than 40 per cent of CO2 emissions from heating in its Ghent plant. This is an important step towards Volvo Cars realising its target of having climate neutral operations by 2025, and underlines its support for global efforts to tackle climate change.
