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A rooftop solar project of more than RMB 5 million is changing how we make stretch film — and what our customers can expect from our quotations.
At PUDI's production base, one of the most important assets is no longer inside the workshop. It is on the roof.
Above our extrusion lines, a solar array now generates electricity that goes directly into manufacturing. For a stretch film producer, this is not a symbolic sustainability gesture. It is a structural change to one of the most sensitive lines in our cost model.
Stretch film is a continuous process. Our extrusion lines run around the clock — melting resin, forming the web, cooling, slitting and rewinding. Every one of those steps consumes power.
Once you take raw material out of the equation, electricity is the single largest part of our processing cost — roughly half. That has two consequences. When grid tariffs move, the cost of making film moves with them. And when energy costs are volatile, long-term price commitments become difficult for any manufacturer to honour.
For buyers, that volatility usually shows up in an unwelcome way: a quotation that is valid for thirty days, followed by a re-quote when energy prices change.
That was the reasoning behind PUDI's decision to invest more than RMB 5 million in rooftop solar.
The logic is straightforward. Grid electricity is a variable cost that rises with production volume — and a price that someone else sets. Self-generated solar power converts a large part of that variable cost into a fixed investment. Once the system is in place, every kilowatt-hour produced on our own roof carries a very low marginal cost.
The more we produce, the more visible that advantage becomes.
Rooftop solar is a well-understood technology. Installing it on an operating film factory is not.
The roof had to be assessed and reinforced, and waterproofing had to be reworked before the mounting structure could go up. Construction had to be scheduled around production, because stopping an extrusion line is not an option. Grid connection, metering modifications and approvals took longer than expected. And the capital sits on the balance sheet for years before the investment pays back.
There were also operational realities. Solar output depends on weather, so the team introduced load scheduling — shifting the most energy-intensive stages into the brightest hours of the day — and is building daily reporting on generation and energy consumption per ton.
There were weeks when it would have been easier to stop. We didn't.
The investment only makes sense if it reaches the people we serve. At PUDI, it shows up in three places.
Green power reduces our conversion cost per ton. That reduction goes into our quotation — and unlike a promotional discount, it is not temporary. It is built into the way the film is made.
Electricity is one of the few inputs in stretch film that a manufacturer cannot control. Self-generation reduces that exposure. The practical benefit for buyers is a quoted price that can be held for a longer validity period — and fewer mid-season re-quotes that disrupt planning and budgeting.
Buyers shipping packaging into Europe and North America are increasingly asking about recyclability and their own carbon reporting. Film produced with self-generated green electricity carries a lower grid-based emission factor per ton. That is a number procurement and ESG teams can actually use — not a marketing claim.
The packaging industry is energy-intensive, and it is under real pressure to reduce emissions. Every ton of film made with green electricity is a ton with a smaller footprint.
If more factories make this shift, the effect compounds across the supply chain — and customers in Europe and North America can meet their sustainability targets with packaging that is genuinely made that way, not just marketed that way.
PUDI's next steps are practical rather than promotional: