Volvo Trucks’ plant in Ghent, Belgium is the first vehicle plant in the world that is completely free from carbon dioxide (CO2) and is an important link in EU’s goal for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by 20% in Europe by 2020. The facility will use a combination of biomass, wind, solar and bio-oil to provide the renewable energy to manufacture around 35,000 trucks per year. The Volvo Trucks website has a handy tool that allows you to calculate the energy needed to manufacture a truck and the emissions that go with it. It takes around 103MWh of energy to make one, with CO2 emissions ranging between 14 and 15 tones, depending on the model.

"Our ambition is to make all our plants CO2-free plants and Ghent is the first. It is not an easy undertaking, but we are prepared to try different alternatives to achieve our goal for CO2-free production in our plants.", Leif Johansson, Volvo CEO. The Ghent factory has constructed a new pellet-fired biomass plant, which supplies 70% of the heating requirements. The solar cells on the roof supply the energy required for the combustion process. Three wind turbines on the site cover half of the facility’s electricity requirements. An oil-fired boiler that was converted to burn bio-oil provides 30%. The remaining electricity consists of certified green energy supplied by Belgium's leading energy company, Electrabel:
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