Renewables developer BayWa r.e. has signed a ten-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Finnish packaging company Huhtamaki for two new solar plants in southern Spain.
Construction work on projects, which will have a combined capacity of around 135MWp, is set to begin by the second half of 2022, with energy to be delivered to Huhtamaki from Q3 2023.
Representing Huhtamaki’s first VPPA, the agreement is structured with an “innovative price mechanism” that benefits both parties during times of high electricity costs and current PV module supply chain challenges, BayWa r.e. said.
Agreed on between the two parties in just eight weeks, the agreement for 200GWh per year of green power will cover approximately 80% of Huhtamaki’s electricity needs in Europe as the company looks to achieve carbon neutral production and use 100% renewable electricity by 2030.
“More and more corporations, from ever-widening industry sectors, are sourcing renewables and putting PPAs in place to achieve carbon reduction targets while also securing savings against electricity price volatility,” said Daniel Parsons, BayWa r.e. head of PPA EMEA.
Other recently announced solar VPPAs include renewables developer Vesper Energy inking an agreement with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in Texas, while Clearway Energy Group signed an 80MW VPPA with Toyota for a PV plant in Mississippi.
BayWa r.e. earlier this year signed what it said was Poland’s first solar corporate PPA. Construction company HeidelbergCement agreed to offtake electricity from the Witnica 65MWp plant – which has since been sold to independent power producer Alternus Energy Group – through a ten-year PPA.
In Spain, BayWa r.e. secured 14MW of solar capacity in the country’s most recent renewables auction in October and has since sold a 148MWp PV plant, located in the southern Andalucía region, to Austrian utility Verbund that is due to be commissioned in Q1 2022.
