SUSTAINABILITY
Sixty percent of the energy consumed by Profertil in Bahía Blanca is already renewable.
This has an impact on 50% of the country’s wheat and maize harvest.
– Profertil, the main fertilizer company in the country, has achieved that most of the energy it consumes in its Bahía Blanca plant is from renewable sources, thus consolidating a great advance in sustainability. This achievement has been possible thanks to the inauguration of the modern Los Teros windfarm, near the city of Azul, in the province of Buenos Aires, owned by YPF Luz.
Since the commissioning on October 2, the big wind turbines started to supply as much as 60% of the energy needs of the Bahía Blanca plant, which belongs to the most important fertilizer company in Argentina.
There, Profertil produces urea with wind energy. This product makes it possible to supply 50% of the consumption of strategic crops for the Argentine agriculture such as maize and corn.
Federico Veller, general manager of the company, remembered when the agreement was entered into with YPF Luz in 2018. “At that time we started to use energy from renewable sources in our plant, but now, with the commissioning of Los Teros, we already meet 60% of our needs with wind energy, which we are proud of”, he says.
“Argentine legislation establishes that industries must use 8% of renewable energies. Profertil already supplied 15% of its demand with sources from that origin. But now, it consolidates itself in a true leadership position”, adds Veller.
The agreement with YPF Luz is long term. It establishes a 20-year supply, which will guarantee the consolidation of these advances in sustainability, which are in line with the objectives that Profertil set itself to collaborate in the task of reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.
The company signed the United Nations Global Compact, which established sustainable development goals by 2030, including two that are priorities for the company: working to address climate change and responsible food production and consumption.
“This new advance that we make at Profertil with renewable energy sources is linked to the increasingly sustainable agriculture in Argentina, where maize and wheat, crops that grow driven by our urea, are absolutely strategic”, details Veller.
And he concluded, “In times as complex as these, in which the world needs to continue producing food and to do so guaranteeing high quality standards, these advances achieved in Argentina allow us to look to the future with optimism”.
Profertil puts this agreement in line with other sustainable milestones in its 20-year history, such as the capacity expansion and energy saving project, the certification of ISO 50001 standard on energy efficiency, the development of automotive grade urea for diesel engines and eNeTotal Plus development (nitrogen fertilizer with volatilization inhibitor), among others.