Tesco announced on 1 December 2008 plans to generate energy on-site at 50 of its UK stores, through installing combined heat and power (CHP) plants. This forms a key part of the company's strategy to halve the carbon footprint of its existing estate by 2020.
The investment will cost the company £27 million but it anticipates that it will rcoup the cost in 8 years.
Most of Tesco's CHP plants will run on gas but, last month, it opened a plant at its Colney Hatch store which runs on bio-fuels such as UK-grown vegetable oil.
The compnay argues that this will effectively make the energy used in the store carbon neutral. The Colney Hatch plant will also be used to produce cooling too.
By passing the heat through a hot water driven 'adsorption' system, chilled water is produced which is used to support the energy needs of its refrigeration and air conditioning systems. This is the first commercial application for an adsorption chiller in the UK.
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