What do Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Alfa Romeo, and Fiat have in common? The answer is Stellantis North America, the company that produces and sells their vehicles. And it recently partnered with utility and energy company DTE Energy to fund a renewable energy program in Michigan.
The partnership will add 400 megawatts of new solar projects in the state via DTE’s MIGreenPower program.
The program helps residents of Michigan to reduce their carbon footprint without having to finance the upfront cost of installing their own systems.
MIGreenPower plans to generate enough clean energy to power over a million homes by 2025.
With more than 50 wind and solar parks in the state, MIGreenPower currently generates enough green energy to power 700,000 homes. The Stellantis-DTE partnership will add clean energy to power 130,000 homes per year. The automaker will be able to use 100% of solar energy at its 70 southeast Michigan sites, which include manufacturing and non-manufacturing facilities.
The Stellantis-DTE deal is the second-largest renewable energy purchase ever made from a U.S. utility, according to BloombergNEF’s Corporate PPA Database. It is part of the automaker’s goal to become carbon net zero by 2038 and to cut its carbon emissions by half by 2030 vs. 2021 levels. It also plans to make 100% of its sales in Europe and 50% of its sales in the U.S. to be battery electric vehicles by 2030.
“While this day and this historic agreement are about clean and efficient power, I’d like to suggest that today is also about the power of partnerships in this new era of sustainable mobility,” said Mark Stewart, COO of Stellantis North America. “Our success — indeed our survival — will depend more and more on how completely we embrace the values of collaboration and partnership as strategic imperatives that help us achieve breakthrough business outcomes.”
Over 800 companies and 75,000 residential customers are enrolled in the MIGreenPower program. This helps to generate 4 million megawatt hours of renewable energy, which in turn avoids over 3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere annually.
In addition to MIGreenPower, DTE’s CleanVision plan includes an investment of $9 billion into Michigan’s economy for the next 10 years. DTE also plans to develop over 15,000 megawatts of clean energy and build over 1,800 megawatts of energy storage over the next two decades. It also intends to accelerate the retirement of its remaining coal-fired power plants.
Stellantis’ sustainability goals include expanding hydrogen fuel cell technology for large vans in 2024 with the first U.S. offering taking place in 2025.
This technology will further expand to heavy-duty trucks. By 2030, it also plans to develop a circular economy “from cradle to cradle,” have at least 35% of leadership roles filled by women, and fund advanced technologies via its Stellantis Corporate Venture Fund.
