Anheuser-Busch’s (A-B) entire domestic beer and seltzer portfolio — including Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, and Brewers Collective craft brands — is now brewed with 100% renewable electricity from wind and solar power, the world’s largest beer manufacturer announced today.
The A-B Solar Farm, a 2,000 acre solar energy facility in Pecos County, Texas, will go online this month, marking the completion of A-B’s 2018 sustainability goal to source 100% of its purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
“Achieving this ambitious sustainability goal four years early means that each time someone reaches for an Anheuser-Busch product, they are choosing one that contributes to a more sustainable future,” Michel Doukeris, CEO of A-B, said in a release.
Construction on the solar farm began in 2019, in partnership with Recurrent Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian Solar Inc. To celebrate the initial project announcement, Doukeris signed “the world’s longest contract” — a symbolic five billion year contract with the sun, committing to use renewable electricity sources at A-B “as long as the sun is shining.”
“The growth of solar is now driven by the sheer competitive pricing compared to other generation sources. It’s exciting to see companies like our valued customer, Anheuser-Busch, procuring low-cost, clean solar power to support their load on a national level with 100% renewable electricity,” Michael Arndt, president and general manager of Recurrent Energy, said in a statement.
The energy facility is the size of 1,500 football fields and houses enough solar panels to stretch from New York City to the Southern tip of Florida, according to A-B. It is expected to generate 650 GWhrs of energy annually — enough electricity to brew 20 billion 12 oz. servings of beer a year, according to a 2019 A-B release.
The facility, along with the Budweiser Wind Farm in Oklahoma and 10 additional renewable electricity installations at A-B breweries, distributors, and craft partner breweries, adds nearly 400MW of renewable electricity capacity to the grid. In total, A-B’s projects offset more than 950,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually — the equivalent of taking 200,000 passenger vehicles off the roads a year, according to the company.
In celebration of meeting it’s 2025 goal, A-B is donating $100,000 to the Green Restaurant Association, an international nonprofit organization that helps restaurants go green with certification and education resources. The donation will go directly towards educational resources that will help the industry implement renewable electricity, energy efficiency improvement, and product cooling into business practices, according to the release.
“Businesses in America, both large and small, have an important role to play in combating the existential threat of climate change,” U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing more companies in the private sector follow Anheuser-Busch’s example to shrink their carbon footprint and ensure a greener, healthier future for our planet.”