Kimberly-Clark Factory

SOLTECH > Applications > Kimberly-Clark Factory

THE ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS FORTUNE 500

Kimberly-Clark, founded in 1878 in Neenah, Wisconsin, is an American multinational company that manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. in addition, Kimberly-Clark operates non-woven fabric mills and paper mills. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes, and Huggies disposable diapers and baby wipes.

In recent years, Kimberly Clark initiated their Sustainability 2022 plan. Through their brand-led programs like Toilets Change Lives and No Baby Unhugged, and their leadership in creating the Alliance for Period Supplies, it is evident they are taking action on critical issues around the world.

In 2018, the Kimberly-Clark teams advanced water stewardship in some of the world’s most water-stressed areas, reduced the use of fiber from natural forests, and diverted manufacturing waste and post-consumer waste to higher value beneficial uses.

Kimberly-Clark has also been making strides in offsetting their greenhouse emissions using solar energy. Part of the sustainability plan includes a commitment by Kimberly Clark to reduce their carbon footprint by 40% by 2022. For example, to help offset greenhouse emissions of their Georgia manufacturing plant, they began work on a 3-MW solar photovoltaic project. Kimberly Clark’s previous use of solar energy made it an easy decision to go with Soltech’s solar lights when they needed to replace the lights at one of their factories in Costa Rica. Soltech was glad to help Kimberly-Clark in making their company more environmentally friendly and sustainable.

The Project

The Kimberly-Clark manufacturing plant in Costa Rica reached out to Soltech inquiring about our solar lights.

Soltech provided 30 Sunlike 20W for the main car parking lot, main entrance, and truck driveway at the Kimberly-Clark Factory in Costa Rica. The average foot candle was >2. The design and installation of the fixtures was done with Soltech’s regional partner Project Master in San Jose, Costa Rica. Soltech consistently works with Project Mater due to their diligent work and expert installation In every project their team does.

For many Latin American countries, they do not have four seasons like most places in the United States, but instead, they have “rainy” and “dry” seasons. This has been a challenge for many solar lights in climates like these because the fixtures are unable to absorb enough sunlight. However, this is already an obstacle Soltech has overcome. With the IAP (Intelligent Adaptive Program Battery Control Technology) program integrated, Soltech brought the best smart solar lighting solution for this project.

The IAP integrates an adaptive smart control feature to actively track battery capacity and adjust light output accordingly. The controller actively monitors the battery and regulates the electrical current to the LEDs and makes the light output of the selected percentage on the remote relative to battery capacity rather than max LED output. Besides, Soltech lights can still charge under clouds because there is still indirect sunlight. Installations in tropical environments with rainy seasons and dry seasons present no difficulty due to our unique, municipal-grade design with an unmatched off-grid endurance/performance ratio.

To make sure the fixtures worked efficiently, Soltech designers did a lighting design for them using the software DIALux. With DIALux, the designers at SOLTECH can both fit the customer’s wanted design and guarantee superior light distribution.