Hershey offtakes 70 MW of solar power

Located in Camden, North Carolina, The Hershey Company has made a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) that will enable the financing and construction of the company's first utility-scale solar farm. The farm is being developed by BayWa r.e. This solar project will be a 20 megawatt (MW-AC) facility on 218 acres of land. Once completed, the North Carolina project will reduce CO2 emission by 32,025 metric tons per year, the equivalent of emissions incurred from driving more than 80 million miles in the average passenger car or charging nearly 3.9 billion smartphones. Construction of the new solar farm is expected to be completed in late July 2021.

In addition, Hershey has signed a solar power purchase agreement (PPA) with National Grid Renewables for 50 megawatts (MWac) of the previously announced 275 MW Noble Project (Noble), currently under construction in Denton County, Texas. Hershey's solar contract will account for an estimated 118,000 megawatt-hours per year, creating a reduction of approximately 83,625 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, equivalent to driving 210 million miles in the average passenger car or charging more than 10 billion smartphones. Hershey is one of several companies involved in the Noble Project, which is estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a total of 450,000 metric tons annually during the first 20 years of operations.