omniture

Geico's Self-Sustainable Paintshop

Geico Spa
2009-05-14 21:02 2710

MILAN, May 19 /PRNewswire-Asia/ --

With paint shops being the biggest consumers of power in assembly plants, the challenge in an increasingly energy-hungry world is to make them more efficient.

Facing this challenge head-on is Italian specialist supplier Geico.

"We have a very ambitious goal which is the Energy Independence Day" scheduled for 16 June 2020 when we want to offer a self-sufficient paintshop to the market," says Dr. Ali Reza Arabnia, President and CEO of Geico.

The company has supplied top-notch car manufacturers around the world with complete automated paint plants for nearly half a century. Moreover, Geico is the sole owner of Haden’s, Drysys’, Cardys’ IP, patents and trademarks globally.

Environmental issues are core beliefs in Geico’s culture and Dr. Arabnia, considers them in terms of social responsibility. For these reasons, Geico has its own internal division called Pardis which is particularly dedicated to energy-saving and environmentally friendly solutions. It aims at arranging economically appealing solutions for the respect of BAT considering a global reduction of thermal consumption from 1500 MJ/body to less than 800 MJ/body.

Paint-shops consume about 70% of electrical energy and 80% of heat energy necessary for vehicle production. Painting a vehicle body produces about 235 kg of CO2, and this is only when considering electric/heating and refrigeration consumptions. Also, the energy consumption of a paint-shop of 300.00 job/year is about 250 GWh. This is the same amount needed by a city of 50,000 inhabitants.

Geico’s commitment became even more concrete last July, with the signature of an important agreement with Fenice, an Italian/French company of Electricite de France (EDF), which is an Energy Service Company (ESCO) and operates in the market of Green and White Certificates. As a matter of fact, Europe is moving towards an energy saving policy and has launched the 20-20-20 Directive which aims at a 20% reduction of energy consumption, a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions and a 20% production of energy from renewable sources.

Geico won’t miss that important goal and has already inaugurated its Ecological Debt Free Day: a green area entirely planted by the company itself to symbolically reduce its impact on the environment.

Source: Geico Spa
collection