SOUTH AFRICA – Retail giant Shoprite has launched South Africa’s first premium supermarket to run entirely off renewable energy from wind and solar sources.

This follows the company’s installation of a 635kWp rooftop solar PV installation at its own Sitari Village Mall where Checkers Sitari outlet is located.

The project was fulfilled courtesy of signing of an agreement with Eskom’s Renewable Energy Tariff (RET) programme, which allows customers to source up to 100% of their electricity from renewable resources.

The Sitari Village Mall, with Checkers as anchor tenant, will generate 35% of its electricity from its rooftop solar PV system.

The remaining 65% – 1,752 MWh of renewable energy – will be sourced from Eskom’s wind plant via the RET programme.

This is enough to power the entire centre, including the Checkers supermarket, entirely on renewables.

“The commitment to renewable energy is part of Checkers’ wider climate change strategy, which acknowledges that climate change will, directly and indirectly, impact our business and the communities we are a part of.

“Therefore, we commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, continuously improve energy efficiency, and strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of our operations and that of our communities,” said Shoprite Group Sustainability Manager Sanjeev Raghubir.

This is part of Checkers’ ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability and comes as the retailer launches an environmental campaign to drive further awareness and dialogue on this important issue.

Main focus of the campaign includes: recycling tons of cardboard and plastic, using recycled content in packaging, reducing food and plastic waste, sourcing products with sustainably sourced ingredients, and increasingly using renewable electricity.

Last year, the Shoprite Group, doubled its solar capacity and announced its intention to power 25% of operations with renewable energy.

The Group has committed to procuring 434 000 MWh of renewable energy a year from a specialist energy trader through its renewable energy procurement project, the first of its kind in Africa.

Shoprite is joining a growing number of SA companies who are investing in solar and renewable power as the Eskom grid becomes increasingly unreliable and electricity prices rocket.

Recently South African Breweries (SAB) inked a Power Purchase Agreement with a Black-Woman Owned industrial scale biogas waste-to-energy company, Bio2Watt.

Following the agreement, South Africa’s largest beer maker will soon be using the manure of over 7 000 cows to power its operations.

The renewable energy will be supplied from the Bio2Watt’s Cape Dairy Biogas Plant once it reaches commercial operation.

Under this Power Purchase Agreement SAB will achieve 23% contracted renewable electricity.

All of the company’s breweries in the country already use solar power, which we are currently expanding and the Alrode brewery in Johannesburg is also making use of a biogas facility.

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