9 Stellantis plants aim for carbon neutrality

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' 2021 merger with PSA Group led to its North American plants reducing their carbon footprints through more efficient protocols.

Facilities under the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles umbrella before the formation of Stellantis adopted an eight-step process from PSA two years ago called Excellent Plant Shutdown, which strategically shuts off equipment in nonproduction periods to cut energy consumption.

Nine Stellantis plants in Michigan, for instance, have saved $1 million since instituting the measures in 2021. These plants conserved 15 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, Stellantis said, the equivalent of charging about 950 million smartphones. Including other energy-saving programs, the plants have saved a total of 25 million kilowatt-hours.

"We're documenting the key steps in order to assign responsibility, understand the equipment that can be shut down and to what level, who's going to be shutting down and then we follow that up with an audit and then we measure the results afterwards," Kevin Dunbar, Stellantis' director of North America facilities and general services, told Automotive News. "It's really, honestly, quite simple."

Simple actions are delivering major savings in the Michigan plants, with the equivalent of 7,800 tons of carbon dioxide cut over the last two years. This brings Stellantis closer to its 50 percent carbon footprint reduction target by 2030, which is part of the company's Dare Forward 2030 business plan. By 2038, Stellantis aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions.

"The key part is the documentation of it," Dunbar said. That "forces people to take responsibility for the key pieces of equipment" and it "documents — from an operating procedure — the capabilities of the equipment, so a certain piece of machinery may not be able to be shut down 100 percent, but we can go to 75 percent, 80 percent, and it's fully documented."

Carrying out these changes was a challenge at first, with thousands of pieces of equipment in assembly plants to account for. But the UAW supported the moves, Dunbar said, which took several months to implement.

The effort included an array of measures that Dunbar said cost little or nothing, such as setting lower heating set points and switching from fluorescent bulbs to LEDs.

In addition to the savings, Dunbar said Stellantis earns incentives from DTE Energy as part of the Detroit utility's Strategic Energy Management program for large commercial and industrial customers. Stellantis was recognized for its work by DTE Energy and the Engineering Society of Detroit with the 2023 Innovation Energy Efficiency Award.

The company worked to make sure the climate control system at Warren Truck Assembly Plant had the ideal temperature set points and that the right number of air handling units were on. The plant produces Jeep Wagoneer SUVs and Ram 1500 Classic pickups.

At Sterling Stamping Plant, Stellantis reduced its use of compressed air. It previously needed a setting of more than 90 pounds per square inch, Dunbar said, "and in certain situations, depending on the type of shutdown, we were able to reduce that down to almost 70 psi, which is a huge savings and something that we never really had done before."

The company cut heat usage at Detroit Assembly Complex-Jefferson by installing thermometers on its dock heaters. Dunbar said the dock doors open and close often, so gauging the temperature changes is critical. When a door opens, "you're not running full out, you're only maintaining a certain temperature," he said. "When it closes, then the heat kicks back on, so it really optimized the amount of heat that was being used."

Stellantis plants have been sharing optimization strategies, building a list of 102 best practices that can be implemented wherever they make sense.

The automaker hasn't run out of opportunities to cut emissions, Dunbar said. There's still room for improvement, and Stellantis is on the lookout for more gains every year.

"We've seen drastic improvement through this process," he said. "There's, in my mind, still room to go. We can make some continuous improvements there. In terms of energy efficiency, there's still much more to go on the process side.

"There's things I would say like heat recovery or process improvements that we're diving into now that might have a little bit longer of a payback, but we're looking at those and trying to optimize the business case."