German renewable energy company BayWa r.e. says it will launch a tender offering 10 TWh of renewable energy for corporate power purchase agreements (PPA) for a period of 10 years as Europe's 1st ever tender initiated by a developer.
The said tender is scheduled to be launched in Autumn 2022 once terms and conditions are finalized. Projects under the tender will be located in Germany and Spain. Total output will be shared with various offtakers.
As corporates accelerate their efforts to meet their sustainability targets and deal with the current energy crisis in Europe, BayWa will try to meet 'a very high corporate demand', especially in the EMEA region.
Specifically, the tender will target commercial and industrial customers to offer them affordable and stable energy supply that works for the latter as it protects them from future energy price increases. For the renewables industry, it encourages further expansion of renewable projects.
"This is truly an unprecedented time for energy markets across Europe. Corporates are facing price spikes and increasing uncertainty, and at the same time they want to play an active role in tackling the climate crisis," said BayWa's Head of PPA, Daniel Parsons. "Renewable energy is the only answer, and long-term PPA contracts are a key tool to achieve reliable electricity supply and to enable more renewable energy. It's brilliant that we're now able to introduce a tender process to our PPAs in Spain and Germany."
In April 2022, it announced a corporate PPA with Nestlé to supply 62 GWh of solar energy annually for its operations in Spain and Portugal. Power will be supplied from 50 MW Picón Solar Park in Castile-La-Mancha, Spain, scheduled to be commissioned in Q1/2023.
Recently in a report, the online marketplace for renewable energy procurement LevelTen Energy said it was seeing a spike in prices for wind and solar PPAs in North America and Europe due to various factors including supply chain challenges, energy crisis in Europe exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Yet offtakers are still interested in PPAs which is in fact leading to a demand and supply gap (see Growing Imbalance Of RE PPA Demand & Supply).