BERLIN, April 11 Reuters MercedesBenz aims to halve its CO2 emissions by 2030, the carmaker said on Monday, providing a halfway goal to its existing target of becoming CO2 neutral by 2039.

The company will also work towards covering 70 of the energy it needs for production with renewable energy by 2030, up from 4550 at present, it said.

Around 15 of this energy should come from solar and wind plants on or linked to MercedesBenz39; own sites, production chief Joerg Burzer said in a presentation.

The rest will be sourced through socalled Power Purchase Agreements PPAs, where power producers are paid to generate a certain amount of energy over a number of years at a set price.

The carmaker is in advanced discussions to purchase additional wind energy through PPAs worth a billion euros 1.09 billion by 2025, Burzer added.

For now, MercedesBenz still relies on gas as a backup supply source. We obviously still need the gas, Burzer said. We are working on minimising that.

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Reporting by Victoria Waldersee Editing by Paul Carrel

Source Reuters