Oriental Brewery said Monday it will brew beer with solar power to pursue RE100, a global initiative to source 100 percent of electricity consumption from renewable energy sources.

According to South Korea’s largest beer maker by revenue, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Kepco Energy Solution and Aeonus to construct solar power generation facilities that will supply clean electricity to three OB beer factories in Gwangju, Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province and Icheon in Gyeonggi Province.

OB aims to begin construction of the facilities next month, commence the first operation early next year and run all three of them within the first half of next year.

Once completed, the three facilities will offer 12 gigawatt-hours of electricity for the beer factories annually, which will be equivalent to cutting 5,621 metric tons of carbon dioxide. As the lifespan of the facilities is expected to be 30 years, a total 160,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be reduced, according to the company.

OB will provide the land at the factories required for building the facilities. Kepco Energy Solution will handle the engineering, procurement and construction. Aeonus will operate and manage the facilities and sell the electricity to OB.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)