Orsted is to supply 31MW of electricity to the UK subsidiary of food and beverage company Nestle from the 573MW Race Bank offshore wind farm off the east coast of England under a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
The PPA, which is Orsted’s largest fixed-price corporate PPA in the UK, will start in May and see Nestle begin receiving 125 gigawatt-hours of electricity covering 50% of its UK power consumption.
The agreement, along with Nestle UK’s already existing PPAs, means that all of the company UK’s consumption is covered by PPAs from renewable energy backed by certificates.
Orsted said the deal stabilises revenues for Race Bank and reduces merchant power price exposure across the portfolio.
Nestle UK and Ireland chief executive Stefano Agostini said: “I’m incredibly proud that at Nestle we are doing the right thing to play our part in reducing climate change.
“With our partnership with Orsted we are now able to cover 100% of our electricity from wind power, another huge milestone in our efforts to become a sustainable business.”
Orsted Offshore senior vice president and responsible for corporate PPAs Rasmus Errboe said: “We’re very happy to enter into this long-term agreement with Nestle and support them to achieve their sustainability ambitions.
“Large corporations are increasingly taking climate action by sourcing green power, thereby making important contributions to the demand for renewable energy.
“Today’s announcement with Nestle UK demonstrates offshore wind’s attractiveness as a reliable, large-scale source of green power and underlines Orsted’s ambition to continue to be a leader within corporate PPAs for offshore wind.”
Orsted signed the world’s largest PPA in December for offshore wind with Covestro for 100MW of the output from the Borkum Riffgrund 3 project in Germany.
The corporate PPA with Nestle UK is Orsted’s second in the UK, following the 23MW agreement with Northumbrian Water, signed in February 2019.