Solar-powering Saft’s plant in Poitiers: For Greener Energy

The project that TotalEnergies started working on in 2018 in Poitiers was aimed at achieving two goals: reducing the Saft industrial plant’s substantial energy bill and at the same time curbing its environmental impact. We installed photovoltaic panels on carport rooftops, which blend into the landscape, to do both. Besides providing shade and protection for Saft employees’ parked cars, TotalEnergies’ solution produces 1.4 GWh of renewable energy directly on site each year.

A solar project mirroring our strategy

TotalEnergies has been active across the solar energy value chain for 40 years, delivering custom solutions ranging from electricity production to sale.

TotalEnergies’ teams worked at our subsidiary Saft’s plant in Poitiers, France. The plant principally produces high-value-added cells and batteries for the electronics, space and defense sectors, and the project’s goal was to reduce its environmental impact and increase its energy efficiency.
Achieving that goal—without disrupting the company’s operations—involved installing 2,730 solar panels on 5,500 sqm of carport rooftops.

The solution has been up and running since January 2019. It produces 1.2 MW of renewable electricity on site each day, and up to 1.4 GWh a year—or enough to power more than 200 homes.

This project to solar-power Saft’s plant is a perfect example of our strategy: it is reducing the customer’s electricity bill and shrinking its environmental footprint. Our teams set up a similar solution at Saft’s plant in Nersac (near Angoulême, also in France).