Solar PV developer ib vogt has signed a multi-buyer virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) for its 174MW Serbal solar project in the Castilla y Léon region of Spain.
The deal is with American biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific and testing laboratories company Eurofins Scientific. The former will acquire 91MW of capacity from the Serbal project to meet energy demand at over half of its European operations bases, whilst the latter will offtake 36MW annually. The remainder of the project capacity left unspoken for will be traded on the wholesale market.
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The project is expected to begin commercial operations in early 2025. The company said that the project will deploy bifacial modules on a single-axis tracker-mounted system.
While ib vogt did not disclose the suppliers for either modules or trackers, it has previously had supply agreements with US-based tracker provider Nextracker for a 150MW project in Spain.
In July this year, ib vogt received a €350 million (US$377 million) investment from Spanish banking corporation Santander to support the development of its solar project pipeline. Specifically, ib vogt said that the money from Santander would go towards projects – like the Serbal PV plant – which it both develops and operates, rather than those it sells to third parties.
Anton Milner, CEO of ib vogt said: “More and more companies are utilising corporate PPAs to achieve their environmental sustainability goals and we are proud to provide the required capacity.”
Figures demonstrate that private corporate PPAs and VPPAs are on the rise in the solar sector. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance 2022 was a record year for corporate power purchases, with some of the world’s largest and most recognisable companies topping the list of off-takers, including Amazon, Ford and Meta.
This particular deal with Thermo Fisher and Eurofins is notable for its multiple off-takers. In its announcement of the news, ib vogt claimed that “smaller and mid-size companies stand to profit from this technique, as it provides a more tangible way to reduce scope 2 and 3 emissions.”
Early this year, PV Tech spoke with renewable energy asset manager Glennmont Partners about the landscape for PPAs in Europe.