Family-owned Australian wine company Casella Family Brands has partnered with Chinese solar energy provider Trinasolar to open a solar farm at its production site in Yenda, New South Wales.
The 5.7-megawatt solar farm will produce 35% of the power needs of the company’s Yenda facility which bottles the majority of the Casella Family Brands’ portfolio, including its flagship Yellow Tail brand. The facility forms part of the group’s aim to cuts its carbon emissions in half % by 2030.
According to trade association Wine Australia, the country’s wine sector emitted in the region of 1.8m tonnes of CO2 in the 2020/21 financial year. The organisation believes the use of renewable energy will help Australian wine producers reduce their supply-chain emissions by 42% by 2030.
Attempts to decarbonise come at a challenging time for the country’s wine industry. According to Wine Australia’s figures released late last year, the 2022-23 Australian wine harvest was the lowest in 15 years with overall production sliding by over a quarter on the corresponding period a year earlier to 9.64m hectolitres.
