Sustainability to the fore at MAN

Without sustainability, there is no future. Accordingly, MAN Truck & Bus has embedded this ideal firmly in its corporate strategy.

In line with global corporate strategy, MAN South Africa has embarked on a solar project at its bus production plant in Olifantsfontein. This milestone is a major move for MAN on its global mission to build a cost-effective future and reduce MAN’s impact on the environment.

“As a MAN bus manufacturing plant, we utilise high amounts of energy daily through very complex processes. We decided that we wanted to give back to the environment and play our role in reducing CO₂ emissions. A company called The Energy Gurus has helped us take a successful step in the right direction. They ensured we had the best system installed by professionals to the highest quality standards and ahead of time,” says Mark Gouws, plant manager at MAN South Africa.

The anchor points were installed in October 2021, solar panels were fitted in November 2021, and the energy system was commissioned in December 2021. The 360 kW installation only took an impressive six weeks, during which time 806 JA solar 540 W panels and three state-of-the-art GoodWe inverters were installed.

The power generation provided will reduce CO₂ consumption by 372 484 kg per year, which is equivalent to the CO₂ emissions generated by: 1,487 million kilometres driven by an average petrol-powered passenger vehicle, 186 934 kg of coal burned, 158 850 litres of petrol consumed, charging 45,309 million smartphones, or the annual electricity use of 72,5 homes.

“Our mission is not only manufacturing world-class buses and coaches, but to ensure we do not adversely impact the overall environmental footprint, and hence we took on the solar project. This was one of our best moves. The impeccable team from The Energy Gurus surpassed project timeline expectations and maintained every aspect of professionalism and quality service throughout the project,” says Mamotse Mapheto, safety, health, environment, risk, and quality systems (SHERQ) manager at MAN.

MAN’s production plant in Olifantsfontein now has a sufficient supply of electricity during peak production time. Load shedding may not be a thing of the past for the majority of businesses but, for MAN, this sustainable energy source will be easily accessible as long as the country has sunlight. Most importantly, it has reduced MAN’s impact on the environment.