Confectionery and pet food manufacturer Mars, Inc. will power its UK operations—12 plants in all—via renewable electricity from a new 60MW wind farm in Moy, Scotland.

The 20-turbine wind farm, owned and operated by Eneco UK, opened in April 2016 and is expected to have an annual output of over 125,000 megawatt-hours, enough electricity to power 34,000 UK homes. Mars will take most of that energy under the terms of a 10-year supply agreement, with the remainder made available to the local community.

The Moy wind farm comprises twenty 70-meter-high turbines. Image credit: Eneco UK."As with our wind farm in Lamesa, Texas, Moy will contribute significantly to our effort to eliminate fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from our global operations by 2040 as part of our ‘Sustainable in a Generation’ program," says Barry Parkin, chief sustainability and health and wellbeing officer at Mars.

In 2014, Mars entered into a partnership with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas to receive electricity from its 200MW (Lamesa) wind farm sufficient to power 100% of the electricity needs of the company's U.S. operations, which comprise 70 sites, including 37 factories.

With an annual output of over 800,000 megawatt-hours, the energy created from the Mesquite Creek wind farm represents 24% of Mars’ total global factory and office carbon footprint—equivalent to the electricity required to power 61,000 U.S. households.

That wind farm, which commenced commercial operations in 2015, helped the company meet its goal of reducing its fossil fuel energy and greenhouse gas emissions by 25%, using 2007 as the baseline year.