This aerial photo taken on July 17, 2023 shows the newly built solar farm of Tianjin Yinghua New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. in north China's Tianjin. [Photo/Xinhua]

A Tianjin factory of Danfoss, a global refrigeration industry giant, has achieved 100 percent green energy usage since Monday, the company said.

Green electricity refers to electricity with zero or near-zero carbon dioxide emissions in its production process, which is important for achieving carbon neutrality for a company as well as the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry.

Danfoss signed in November a 10-year green power purchase agreement with the State Grid (Tianjin) Integrated Energy Service Co., Ltd. and the Tianjin Yinghua New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. to purchase green power from Yinghua's newly built solar farm.

The solar farm, 20 km away from the Danfoss factory, has an installed capacity of 142.8 megawatts and an annual power generation capacity of 165 million kilowatt-hours (kWh).

The factory consumes 45 million kWh of power per year. It is estimated that by switching to green energy, the factory's carbon emissions decreases by 28,000 tonnes per year.

"It marks a major milestone for Danfoss on our way towards our carbon neutrality goal," said Xu Yang, president of Danfoss China.

The company said its operations may be decarbonized in a three-step approach that is to reduce, reuse, and re-source.

"First, we apply energy-efficient solutions such as heat pumps to take our energy consumption down. Second, we reuse some of the energy that we have already used once. Finally, we look into how we can source it from renewable sources," said Torben Christensen, chief sustainability officer and head of global services at Danfoss.

Danfoss' Tianjin factory has been committed to improving energy efficiency in recent years by implementing many Danfoss advanced energy efficiency solutions, such as Danfoss DTC center cooling solutions, Danfoss smart heating solutions, heat pump solutions, heat recovery and comprehensive utilization solutions, the company said.