BMW's RE100 plan

BMW AG’s head of procurement, Markus Duesmann restated BMWs pledge to shift all its external power purchases to renewables by 2020, up from 63 percent last year, at the United Nations climate conference in Bonn. In practice it means, BMW will need to find enough extra power from renewables to supply the equivalent of about 220,000 homes, based on its annual electricity use of about 1 terrawatt.

Meeting the target means the carmaker will buy local green power for all its 31 production sites in 14 countries, said Duesmann. BMW AG’s plan to switch exclusively to local renewable electricity finds it tapping some uncommon power sources, including a South African biomass plant that runs on cow dung and chicken droppi...