The Kraft Heinz Company announced this week it has been selected for award negotiations to receive up to $170 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstration.
The funds will support new clean energy projects at 10 of the company’s U.S. plants, including two in Iowa.
The Kraft Heinz plant at 1357 Isett Ave., Muscatine, Iowa, is one of those plants. That plant is expected to get $14 million to go toward the company’s efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. (Go here to see more on the project.)
The federal investment will fund part of “The Delicious Decarbonization Through Integrated Electrification and Energy Storage” project.
Company officials said they believe the funding will help:
- Reduce annual emissions across the 10 locations by more than 99% from 2022 levels.
- Support the implementation of innovative technologies. For example, heat pumps, electric heaters, electric boilers, anaerobic digestors, biogas boilers, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and thermal energy storage.
- Create an estimated 500 construction jobs across the 10 plant sites. It also will provide opportunities to upskill workers on the new technologies.
Goal net-zero emissions
“At Kraft Heinz, we’re on a journey to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” Marcos Eloi Lima, chief procurement and sustainability officer at Kraft Heinz, said in a news release announcing the award. “This investment will give us critical resources to make necessary improvements in our plants to help increase their energy efficiency and reduce emissions. This investment recognizes our continued efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, and we’re eager to get started.”
Nine Kraft Heinz sites will receive federal money for their clean energy projects. They include: Champaign, Illinois; Columbia, Missouri.; Fremont, Ohio; Holland, Michigan; Kendallville, Indiana; Lowville, New York; Mason City, Iowa; New Ulm, Minnesota; and Winchester, Virginia. The plants all produce various food products.
“The infrastructure changes made at these 10 plants will allow us to replicate successful technologies and processes across our remaining U.S. plants and globally, making us more efficient as we continue to make upgrades to more locations,” Helen Davis, Kraft Heinz senior vice president and head of North America Operations, said in the release. “I’m proud of the impact this project and award will have on our facilities, but also on our current and future workforce and the communities that surround our operations.”
How plants benefit
Company officials added that the project will significantly benefit the 10 plants by 2030, as estimated below (compared to 2022 levels):
- Overall energy use after the implementation of energy efficiency measures, electrification and onsite generation will decline by 23%. It will go from 1043 GWh/y to 801 GWh/year.
- Natural gas use will decline by 97%, with the remaining 3% being used for standby equipment.
- Total water use will be reduced by 3%.
To develop the application, Kraft Heinz engaged ENGIE. The company provides strategic consulting, global reporting and implementation support to corporations, governmental organizations, and municipalities on their net-zero journeys.
As part of the company’s ongoing work with the U.S. DOE, Kraft Heinz joined its Better Climate Challenge and Renewable Thermal Collaborative to work across industries to exchange ideas and share repeatable models that can help accelerate decarbonization.
