Enel North America and global food giant Nestlé have partnered on a Texas solar-plus-storage project with both an investment and a power purchase agreement (PPA) in place.
Nestlé have provided an unspecified tax equity investment into Enel’s 208MW Ganado solar-plus-storage project in Jackson County, Texas. The investment will allow the project to reach completion, Enel said, with operations expected to begin in Q2 2023.
A 15-year PPA was also signed for the totality of power produced at the site – estimated around 333,000MWh – which Nestlé will use to partially power operations at its US facilities. The company has a commitment to sourcing 100% of its electricity across its sites from renewable generation by 2025.
“Enel is proud to partner with the world’s largest food and beverage company to enable the addition of new clean power capacity in the United States,” said Paolo Romanacci, head of Enel North America’s renewable energy business, Enel Green Power.
“Customers of all sizes are seeking clean energy projects to help reduce their emissions and use more renewable energy, whether through PPAs, direct retail electricity purchases, upfront tax equity investments or other tailored agreements.”
Corporate PPAs hit record levels last year according to research from BloombergNEF, with almost 37GW worth of agreements signed. Enel said in an official release that it signed 12 commercial and industrial PPAs last year, as well as launching a retail electricity alternative.
PV Tech spoke with renewable energy investors Glennmont Partners about the state and future of the PPA market in Europe this week.
Nestlé invested in a 250MW Texas PV project in 2020, and has signed a number of offtake deals with German developer Baywa.re totalling around 62GWh of power a year.
PV Tech’s publisher Solar Media will host the Renewable Energy Trading Summit on 6-7 June 2023 in London. The event will explore PPA structuring, revenue risk management strategies, renewable energy certificates, and much more. For more information, go to the website.
