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Renewable Energy and Efficiency Initiatives
In 2023, roughly 26% of our total refinery energy consumption originated from renewable sources, including:
Hydropower
More than 99% of the electricity used at our Quebec City refinery comes from renewable sources – mainly hydropower, with small portions from wind, biomass, solar and thermal.
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Wind Power
Adjacent to our McKee refinery in the Texas Panhandle, our wind farm includes 33 wind turbines with 50 megawatts of power generation capacity.
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Cogeneration Plants and Expanders
- Cogeneration Plants: Fueled by natural gas, our cogeneration plants reduce our dependency on local power grids, which are often costlier. Cogeneration is a highly efficient and reliable way of producing electricity and thermal energy or steam with the steam used in the refining process. Valero has cogeneration systems at refineries in Wilmington, Benicia, Port Arthur and Pembroke.
- Expanders: At six of our refineries, we have installed “expanders” on processing units that generate power from exhaust gases. In all, our expanders are designed with the capacity to annually displace more than 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide that otherwise would be generated by conventional power plants.
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Heat Transfer
Our refineries utilize heat integration technology to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy-related operating expenses. Heat exchangers enable the transfer of thermal energy from high temperature process streams to lower temperature streams, decreasing natural gas or refinery fuel gas needs for heating and lowering utilities requirements for cooling.
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What Fuels Us We care about the environment, our employees and the communities where we work and live.
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Waste Management
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Recycling Process
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