Mercedes-Benz has hired a contractor to install a 20-turbine wind farm at its test track in Papenburg, Germany.

German wind farm developer UKA has been awarded a long-term contract worth “hundreds of millions” to install the 20 wind turbines by 2025, and bringing the wind farm online is planned for 2026. Once up and running, it will cover around 20% of Mercedes-Benz’s annual electricity requirements in Germany.

The automaker is also considering putting solar on its nearly 2,000-acre test track site. In fact, it’s going to install up to 140 MW of solar on its own properties by 2025.

Mercedes-Benz has a lot of ambitious sustainability goals: It’s aiming to run its global production network entirely with renewables by 2039. It wants to at least halve emissions per passenger car over the entire lifecycle by the end of this decade, compared to 2020. And it wants to do that by switching to electric vehicles, charging the EVs with electricity powered by renewables, improving battery technology, and extensively using recycled materials and clean energy in the production process.

At present, 45% of Mercedes-Benz’s total energy consumption in production is powered by renewables. By 2030, the plan is to boost that to 70%, and that includes expanding onsite generating capacity.

Electrek’s Take

Mercedes-Benz is putting its money where its mouth is by building its own onsite wind farm. So many large multinationals are making green pledges – but there’s also a whole lot of greenwashing.

Mercedes isn’t buying wind (and buying wind in a power purchase agreement is a perfectly fine thing to do); it’s making its own renewable energy onsite. And it’s going to do it with not only wind but solar, too. Nice one, Mercedes-Benz.