French telecoms company iliad Group has signed three solar PV power purchase agreements (PPAs) across Europe for a combined capacity of 89.5MW.
The three PPAs were signed with French utility Engie and Norwegian energy company Statkraft in France, Italy and Poland for an annual volume of electricity produced of 116.7GWh between the three plants.
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In its home country, the PPA was secured with Engie for a 25.6MW solar plant in Saint-Gemme, west of France, with a 15-year agreement. This follows another solar PPA signed between both companies last month in the Landes region.
Meanwhile, the other two PPA agreements – one in central Italy and one in northwestern Poland – were signed with Statkraft for a ten-year duration, both of which will start from 1 January 2025.
In Italy, the plant will have a solar capacity of 27.9MW, while the one in Poland will have 36MW of generation capacity.
Independent power producer (IPP) Sonnedix will operate the solar farm in Italy, while the Polish plant will be operated by solar developer Better Energy. Both Better Energy and Statkraft recently signed PPAs for four solar plants in Poland with a combined capacity of 212MW.
These solar PPAs will boost the French telecom company’s growth in renewables offtake, as it has pledged to meet at least half of its electricity demand in Poland and Italy with PPAs by 2035, while it aims to meet 20% of its French energy demand with such deals.
Once these plants are operational in 2025 and start providing power to iliad, the company will raise its share of renewable electricity consumption provided through PPAs to 13%.
Interest in PPAs is on the rise in Europe, and more particularly corporate ones, as shown by a recent report from analyst firm BloombergNEF, which saw a 75% increase between 2022 and 2023, from 8.8GW to 15.4GW.