2024 ESG Report FINAL - Report - Page 26
Renewable Energy and Ef昀椀ciency
Initiatives
In 2023, roughly 26% of our total re昀椀nery energy
consumption originated from renewable sources,
including:
• Hydropower: More than 99% of the electricity used
at our Quebec City re昀椀nery comes from renewable
sources – mainly hydropower, with small portions from
wind, biomass, solar and thermal.
• Wind Power: Adjacent to our McKee re昀椀nery in the Texas
Panhandle, our wind farm includes 33 wind turbines with
50 megawatts of power generation capacity.
• Cogeneration Plants: Fueled by natural gas, our
cogeneration plants reduce our dependency on local
power grids, which are often costlier. Cogeneration is a
highly ef昀椀cient and reliable way of producing electricity
and thermal energy or steam with the steam used in
the re昀椀ning process. Valero has cogeneration systems
at re昀椀neries in Wilmington, Benicia, Port Arthur and
Pembroke.
• Expanders: At six of our re昀椀neries, 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.
Waste Management
Valero remains focused on reducing the generation of
wastes across air, water and solid streams. Reducing at
the source and reusing, recycling and repurposing of
materials are key components of our waste reduction
program.
In 2023, Valero implemented a customized Waste
Navigator database across the U.S. re昀椀ning 昀氀eet. The
database tracks waste from generation to ultimate
disposition, driving
96% of all re昀椀nery
standardized waste
management practices and
hazardous and
systemic improvements in
exempted waste was
waste reduction, reuse and
recycled in 2023.
recycling. In addition, the
database allows closer oversight of disposal vendors.
Hazardous Waste: In 2023, more than 40 million pounds
of catalyst were recycled to recover valuable metals.
Valero’s hazardous waste management program includes
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The cogeneration unit at our Wilmington re昀椀nery
reduces our reliance on the local power grid and
increases energy ef昀椀ciency.
• Heat Transfer: Our re昀椀neries utilize heat integration
technology to improve energy ef昀椀ciency 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 re昀椀nery fuel gas
needs for heating and lowering utilities requirements
for cooling.
regular waste reviews, risk assessments, waste stream
prioritization and formal personnel training programs.
Every operating site follows speci昀椀c expectations on the
handling and recycling of hazardous wastes as speci昀椀ed
in CTEMS.
Spill Prevention: Valero is focused on reducing spills
across our operations to protect our people and the
environment, always with the goal of zero spills. Our
commitment to reducing environmental scorecard
incidents is a top priority and is strengthened by the
inclusion of this metric in the all-employee bonus. The
environmental scorecard incidents metric is weighted to
the intensity of incidents, with greater impact for more
signi昀椀cant events, including the severity of spills.
The Valero Houston Re昀椀nery, having only
one Environmental Scorecard event in
2023, was awarded the Valero Chairman's
Environmental Award for the seventh time in
the 20-year history of this award.
