Sweden's Ingka Group has shelled out around €340 million ($371 million) to purchase German and Spanish solar power plants representing 440 MW combined capacity from German developer, EPC and IPP Enerparc, in a bid to green the value chain of home furnishings retail chain IKEA of which it is the biggest retailer in the franchisee system.
A total of 4 solar projects with 300 MW are coming up in Germany, and 5 facilities with 140 MW aggregate capacity in Spain. All the projects are currently at early stages of development and are scheduled to enter construction at the end of 2022 which will take roughly 6 months to complete.
This investment is aligned with IKEA's commitment to become climate positive by 2030 under which it aims to reduce more GHG emissions than its value chain emits, and halve the absolute net GHG emissions from its total value chain by the target year.
Managing Director of Krister Mattsson at Ingka Investments that made the deal on behalf of Ingka Group, said, "With our own solar parks and wind farms, we want to make renewable energy available throughout the IKEA value chain and beyond."
Ingka Group said it has invested and committed over €2.7 billion in solar and wind energy projects as part of its €5.6 billion initiative to support 100% renewable energy consumption across the value chain and beyond. Back in April 2021, Ingka said it will pour in an additional €4 billion to accelerate its investments in renewable energy (see Ingka Group Bats For Transition To Renewable Energy).
To date, Ingka Group counts its renewables portfolio to have 547 wind turbines, 10 solar parks and 935,000 solar panels on the rooftop of IKEA's stores and warehouses in 14 nations, altogether generating more than 4 TWh clean energy per year.
CEO and Chairman of the board at Enerparc, Christoph Koeppen called the partnership with Ingka part of its strategy to develop a total of 10 GW solar PV capacity for its own portfolio and 3rd party portfolio by 2030.