Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has committed to holding its overall worldwide manufacturing emissions flat through 2015 at 2004 levels. The company has deployed fuel cells at U.S. sites in a variety of applications. The most recent installations include:

Materials Handling

• In June 2011, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated’s (CCBCC) Charlotte, North Carolina production center began operating a fleet of 40 counterbalanced class one lift trucks powered by Plug Power fuel cells. The forklifts are refueled at three indoor fueling stations with hydrogen from Linde North America.

• In January 2011, Coca-Cola Refreshments USA (CCR) announced that they will deploy a new fleet of Plug Power GenDrive®-powered lift trucks at Coca-Cola’s 250,000 sq. ft. bottling and distribution center in San Leandro, California. The GenDrive® fleet at Coca-Cola’s facility includes 37 Class-1 sit down counterbalanced trucks. The site previously used lead-acid batteries to power its fleet. Plug Power received a purchase order from Coca-Cola in November, 2010 and shipped all 37 units to the customer in December, 2010. Linde North America is supplying the hydrogen.

Combined Heat and Power

• In June 2011, CCR unveiled two UTC Power 400-kW fuel cells that generate 100 percent of the power and 50 percent of the heat used at its East Hartford, Connecticut bottling facility. The project is a collaboration between Coca-Cola, UTC Power, East Hartford, and CCEF.

• In October 2010, operations at CCR’s Elmsford, New York production facility began operation of two UTC Power PureCell® Model 400 fuel cell systems.
  The fuel cell systems provide 35 percent of the electricity and heat required by the facility. NYSERDA provided funding to support the project.

Primary Power

• In March 2011, Coca-Cola subsidiary, Odwalla, announced the installation of a 500-kW Bloom Energy fuel cell system at its juice packaging facility in Dinuba, California. The fuel cell system generates 30 percent of the plant’s power and operates using redirected biogas.

• Coca-Cola has announced that it plans to expand the use of Bloom Energy Servers to additional manufacturing facilities.²⁸ Coca-Cola will take advantage of the Bloom Electrons™ service, which allows customers to purchase the electricity provided by the Bloom Box without having to purchase the fuel cell.

Materials Handling

The Plug Power fuel cell-powered forklifts require only a three-minute fuel time and operate for six to eight hours per fueling.

Unlike the standard battery powered electric trucks, the fuel cell-powered forklifts operate at 100 percent power through the entire fill of hydrogen.

San Leandro, California:

• By removing the infrastructure associated with the lead-acid battery charging, changing and maintenance, CCR will recover more than 2,000 sq. ft. of facility space to use for other business operations.
• Electrical consumption will be reduced by an estimated 1.6 million kWh/year.
• CCR anticipates these savings will yield a return on investment and a 15 percent carbon reduction across the business.²⁹

Combined Heat and Power

Elmsford, New York:

• The fuel cell power plants will help CCR lower its energy costs.
• The UTC Power fuel cells on-site at CCR are capable of operating independent of the local utility power company. If there’s a large-scale power outage in the Elmsford area, the fuel cells will allow select operations to continue at the facility while grid power is being restored.
• The Model 400 is designed to operate in water-balance - no consumption or discharge of water in normal operations - saving millions of gallons of water when compared to central generation.
• CCR will prevent the release of more than 2,635 metric tons of CO2 and more than four metric tons of nitrogen oxide emissions by using the fuel cells instead of non-base load utility power plants.

Primary Power

Dinuba, California:

• The Bloom fuel cell system at Odwalla’s bottling facility will reduce the plant’s carbon footprint by 35 percent.

“Due to the high efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cells and the convenient location of the refueling stations in our plant, we expect to improve both our operating costs and our productivity.” - Bo Calloway, Director of Fleet Operations, CCBCC30

“Sustainability is a core component of our business at Coca-Cola and we have a goal to be the beverage industry leader in energy conservation and climate protection. Converting to hydrogen fuel cell powered forklifts in our San Leandro facility represents one more step towards our commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 15 percent by 2020.” - Brian P. Kelly, Product Supply Leader, Coca-Cola Refreshments³¹

“Coca-Cola is focusing on implementing green innovations and initiatives to reduce our Company’s overall environmental footprint at each step of our operations. Use of these fuel cell systems at our Elmsford facility is one way in which we are working to achieve our 2020 environmental goals.” - John Lacey, Sales Center Manager, Coca-Cola Refreshments

Fuel cell vehicles

• In 2009, a Nissan X-Trail fuel cell vehicle was leased to Coca-Cola‘s Sacramento bottling facility. This was Nissan’s first fuel cell vehicle lease in North America.
• Since 2008, Coca-Cola Germany has been participating in a project with Berlin‘s Clean Energy Partnership to demonstrate a GM/Opel HydroGen4 fuel cell vehicle in everyday driving conditions.