HUNTSVILLE – Toyota Alabama with its industry partner Toyota Tsusho, along with Huntsville Utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the City of Huntsville, and the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber are partnering on a milestone solar farm project that will power 70% of Toyota Alabama’s plant operations.
It will be the first solar field on Toyota property, which is leased by the city and Huntsville Utilities. It is also the first time the company will enter into a power-purchase agreement with a local utility.
It is also the first time Huntsville Utilities will be purchasing power from a company – Toyota and TIA, instead of from TVA – with TVA’s blessing.
“When good things are shared, great things can happen,” said Chris Simmons, vice president of Toyota Tsusho America.
Jason Puckett, president of Toyota Alabama, said this is a huge milestone toward showing respect for the planet, which is one of Toyota’s core values.
“Toyota continues to be transparent and use a scientific based approach to battling climate change,” he said. “And they are not doing it to save money because utility bills will go unchanged.
“We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”
In short, this partnership and project means that starting next year, more than 70% of Toyota Alabama’s power will be offset by solar energy.
To put that in perspective, that’s equivalent to the amount of power needed to generate power to 5,600 homes a year.
It will also be a huge step toward helping Toyota North America’s operations reach their carbon neutrality goal by 2035.
Through the solar array built by Inman Solar, Toyota will offset 22,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions from their operations, letting them create a model of environmental stewardship in manufacturing that will positively impact the world, according to Simmons.
“Today our world is facing some huge environmental challenges and it is going to take huge solutions and that means everybody must have hands on deck,” Simmons said. “That is why TIA has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, and we’re implementing programs that increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption to assist with that goal.”
Wes Kelly, president and CEO of Huntsville Utilities, said the project is the culmination of conversations, meetings, engineering designs, bidding, concerns, and legal actions that started in August 2020.
“That is a long time to be working a project, but a first of its kind project takes time,” he said. “TIA and Toyota Alabama with support from the city, pave the way literally, and they have also stepped up with shovels to start clearing land for the project.
“In this day and age, a lot of what our industry needs to be successful is sustainability. We need to have plants that are good for the climate, good for the community and good for business.
“This project is one of those.”
Huntsville Utilities will be building a new substation to harness that power and bring it into their distribution system. This power will flow throughout the Huntsville Utilities system and will benefit ratepayers who will be purchasing this power at a rate less than what they are currently paying TVA.
“So it is a good business deal for all of our ratepayers and we look forward to the benefit Toyota will be able to put to its renewable energy credits that flow from this project,” said Kelly. “It will not only help Toyota, but we intend to also make those credits available to other customers that have an interest in supporting renewable generation.”
Jared Mitchum, Southeast regional vice president for TVA, said the recipe at TVA is energy, environment and economic development, but the secret ingredient is partnerships.
“After 90 years of generating clean power for the Valley, over the last 20 years, we have started bringing solar in a pretty big way with over 4,000 mostly small installations to the tune of couple billion dollars worth of investment,” said Mitchum. “Partners like this one with Huntsville Utilities is flexible and allows them to meet local needs and local power generation in an infrastructure that’s good for business at the local level.
“TVA will allow us to meet the challenge of the future … we will have around 10,000 megawatts of solar in the Valley by 2035. Today it is 2,400 megawatts.
Mayor Tommy Battle said when the idea of building a solar field out here first came up in 2020, his first thought was, “What’s gonna happen when Toyota Motor Manufacturing has their 1,175th expansion and wants to put in another plant?
“We really wrestled with it a little bit. But then we found out the environmental gains would mean so much to our community – the sustainability effort of the City of Huntsville – and this project in which 70% of the power of this plant is gonna be produced by solar power – something that nobody else has been able to do – then we have to do it.
“It’s an environmental challenge for community, for our world, and this is the right kind of thing to do.”
Madison County Commission Chairman Mac McCutcheon waxed sentimental about the property, remembering it as farmland, and yet marveling at how those buildings and businesses are today, providing good jobs.
“Look at what we’re doing with the Valley’s natural resources,” he said. “We are helping protect those resources and natural environment and we are always proud and supportive of being a partner on these kind of things.”
“The Mayor and I’ve been to Japan a number of times and to hear Toyota talk about sustainability, mobility, and their goals of being carbon neutral by 2035,” said Chip Cherry, president and CEO of the Huntsville Madison County Chamber. “This is a big step in that direction and it’s also an honor to be part of a project that is the first solar farm property owned by Toyota and the City of Huntsville.
“If I have the numbers correct, today, one-third of the cars on the road today in North America, have your engines in them, so 70% of the energy it takes to produce those engines, is offset by this facility, so it’s a great investment.”
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