It has been over two years since Sungrow joined the global corporate renewable energy initiative RE100. These two years witnessed the huge leap forward that Sungrow made towards achieving 100% renewable internally and committed to a carbon-neutral world.
“Decarbonizing our internal system is on a time crunch”
Cao Renxian, the Founder and Chairman of Sungrow, previously a full-time university professor, working on power electronics, started his new career by establishing a start-up technology company 25 years ago.
“Clean energy is the future of power,” Cao stated. Cao sensed this in the 1990s when fossil fuels ruled the world. “Upholding our mission of ‘Clean power for all’, we at Sungrow continue working on innovations to improve the product efficiency, system profitability, and make clean energy accessible to more communities and facilities. Despite making huge strides forward externally, the decarbonization of our own manufacturing and operation is far from done, which is on a time crunch,” he continued.
This has changed in the last two years when Sungrow joined the global RE100 initiative and pledged to source 100% renewable energy in its production and operation activities by 2028 as a dedicated member of RE100.
Green manufacturing and operation
Leveraging renewable energy in daily manufacturing and operation is challenging. Sungrow is accelerating steps to achieve this goal with diversified actions being done.
Sungrow has the world’s largest inverter manufacturing base with an annual production capacity of 140 GW and listed as one of China’s Green Factories. The green manufacturing concept is embedded in everything they do. For instance, forklifts are widely powered by clean electricity instead of oil; materials and waste are recyclable and reusable; even, the energy productivity continues to improve and is expected to increase by over 35% by 2028 with 2018 considered the base year as the Company joined EP100, another initiative of the Climate Group.
The self-owned PV plants on the rooftops of its offices and manufacturing bases offer gigawatt hours of clean energy annually. “Adopting clean energy from rooftops for product manufacturing is an efficient way to go solar -- that’s a sustainable cycle,” said Cao.
“As a newbie at Sungrow, I’m deeply impressed that the Company embeds sustainability in everything we do,” commented Daniel Chou, an engineer who joined Sungrow a month ago. He said that the office is an environmentally friendly space as the facilities are eco-friendly, and the paperless office concept is widely advocated based on the advanced digital information system. Moreover, the smart air-conditioning system is adopted to optimize energy consumption.
The low-carbon incentives are also implemented in other aspects, including the staff dining hall and daily commuting. The staff dining hall at Sungrow’s headquarters uses reusable, eco-friendly tableware. In addition, carbon dioxide is also cut down through dozens of electric buses arranged as commuting shuttles for over 2,000 Sungrow employees.
Decarbonizing value chains
Sungrow does everything to make decarbonization “the new normal”, not just across specific sectors, but across the entire industry and together with a partner network from both upstream and downstream.
“Taking initiatives to efficiently engage with suppliers and try new approaches to fully unlock a climate-neutral organizational structure is vital to us,” Cao said. Sungrow has multiple approaches to help suppliers establish and enhance their own environmental and energy management systems. The company leverages the expertise of its own or third parties to support suppliers in maturing their company approach to climate action.
Sungrow also helps customers reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the product use phase. As of December 2021, the Company's accumulative inverters shipments reached 224 GW -- a number equivalent to generating around 315,200 GWh of clean electricity per year and eliminating 252 million tons of carbon dioxide. Nowadays, Sungrow goes way beyond its PV inverter and energy storage system business and is operating in wind power, the EV sector, and the green hydrogen markets as well, creating low-carbon footprints in more renewable energy niche markets.
Joining RE100 demonstrated a fresh start to explore more decarbonization opportunities and signals a wave of change to come for Sungrow. After joining RE100, Sungrow also became a dedicated member of EP100, UNGC, and joined China's ESG leaders' organization, playing a more responsible role in the global consensus. “Our goal is fueling the global transition to net zero emission and building a net-zero world. We align with the global initiatives and extend partnerships with an increasing number of suppliers and customers, to make energy more reliable, sustainable, and accessible,” concluded Cao.