Mercedes-Benz’s Jörg Burzer says the company is confident in its strategic decisions. Details of a large planned offshore wind development will soon be unveiled, Burzer adds. It recently announced plans to build a 100-megawatt windfarm on its test track at Papenburg, in northern Germany, which will cover more than 15% of the company’s annual electricity needs in Germany. This is part of the company’s “thousand roofs” programme, launched this year, which will see solar panels on factory roofs across Germany and beyond. “You can’t see it from here, but behind the chimney is the multistorey car park, the first one here where the roof has been completely covered with solar panels.” On a visit to the company’s enormous site at Sindelfingen, about 40 miles east of Rastatt, Burzer gestures out of the boardroom window at the sprawling plant where some 35,000 people are employed. “We are very strongly focused on green energy,” he adds, “but even without the mild start to the winter we would have been well placed to get through.” However, the carmaker still relies on gas for certain production processes, particularly in its foundries.īurzer says MBG was able to effectively halve its gas usage by turning off the gas power plants at its sites and by ramping up renewables. Mercedes is less dependent on these supplies than some of Germany’s energy-intensive industries, notably steelmakers, pharmaceutical companies and chemicals producers such as BASF, which said in October it would permanently “downsize” its European operations. Russia accounted for more than half of the country’s natural gas supply in 2020. Germany’s businesses and households had grown accustomed to plentiful Russian gas and oil for many years. “This is a contract which focuses on wind, solar and hydroelectric power.” “We had a big advantage, because we finalised a large green energy contract for all of our factories last year,” says Jörg Burzer, the MBG board member responsible for production and supply chains.
Somewhat fortuitously, Mercedes says its decision last year to make its production carbon-neutral from this year left it well placed to respond. The failure of diplomatic policy towards Moscow has also prompted much soul-searching in Germany over its choice of business partners, with questions now being raised over the wisdom of its reliance on China.Īs winter closes in and demand for energy increases, Mercedes and its rivals have had to adapt to ensure they can keep production facilities such as Rastatt running.Ī Mercedes A-Class being assembled at Rastatt. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a race to find new energy supplies amid sanctions and Russia’s throttling of gas pipelines – a crisis that has already forced Germany to extend the life of its three remaining nuclear power plants. The carmaker lends its name to a whole area of this affluent city – the Benzviertel, where its headquarters and museum are located – and to its Bundesliga football club’s stadium.īut Mercedes and the country’s wider economy now stand at a crossroads. Mercedes-Benz Group (MBG) produces hundreds of thousands such vehicles a year from eight German factories: Rastatt is one of three in the state of Baden-Württemberg, near the company’s physical and spiritual home in Stuttgart.
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