Bacardi Corp., Cataño, Puerto Rico, part of the Bacardi Limited group of companies, unveiled the largest wind turbine installation in Puerto Rico designed to harness natural wind energy to help power Bacardi’s rum distillery near San Juan.
“While many know Bacardi for great rums and cocktails, Bacardi also has been a leader in corporate responsibility and environmental progress. We’re always looking for ways to help the environment and reduce our carbon footprint,” said Joaquin Bacardi, president and chief executive of Cataño-based Bacardi Corp., in a statement. “Our latest innovation with these two specialized wind turbines seizes the power of the wind adding more force to Bacardi’s overall environmental commitment to save energy.”
The two Bacardi wind turbine units are industrial scale at 250kW each and are owned by Cataño-based Aspenall Energies, which will sell the electricity produced by wind to Bacardi under a power-purchase agreement. With their blades, the turbines are 137 feet high and have a rotor diameter of 75 feet.
The two wind turbines are expected to generate approximately 1 million kWh of electricity per year accounting for three to seven percent of the power used by Bacardi, roughly the consumption of the facilities tourism-related activities at its Casa Bacardi Visitor Center (and equivalent to the consumption of about 100 average households) with an expected carbon offset of more than 900 tons of CO2 per year. 100 percent of the power generated by the wind turbines will be consumed by the Bacardi facility. This project is the first step in using wind power as a renewable energy source for Bacardi and the company said it would consider additional wind solutions and other energy saving initiatives.
