Procter & Gamble (P&G) has announced a deal with retail power supplier Constellation to build a 50-megawatt biomass plant that will help run one of P&G’s largest U.S. facilities, as well as provide electricity for the local utility. This company news release says the facility will be built near P&G’s Albany, Georgia paper manufacturing facility and help the company come closer to its 2020 goal of obtaining 30 percent of its total energy from renewable sources.

For more than 30 years, the Albany facility has successfully used a smaller onsite biomass boiler to convert wood scraps into renewable steam, providing about 30 percent of the total energy. The new facility will replace P&G’s aging boiler with a highly efficient combined heat and power biomass unit. Incoming biomass will provide 100 percent of the steam, and up to 60-70 percent of the total energy used to manufacture Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue.

“At P&G, we are committed to improving the environmental sustainability of our products across all aspects of their life cycle – from manufacturing, packaging, delivery and consumer use,” said Martin Riant, P&G Executive Sponsor of Sustainability and Group President, Global Baby and Feminine & Family Care. “As this project enables us to operate one of our largest global plants with a renewable energy source, it will reduce the environmental footprint of two leading brands, Bounty and Charmin. We see this as a win for our business, consumers, partners and the environment.”

Construction is already underway at the site and is expected to begin commercial operation in June 2017.