Nestlé UK and Ørsted Sign Offshore Wind PPA

Nestlé UK has signed a long-term corporate power purchase agreement to buy the output of 31 MW from Ørsted’s Race Bank offshore wind farm.

The UK subsidiary of the world’s largest food and beverage company, Nestlé, signed a 15-year indexed fixed price agreement with Ørsted.

This is Ørsted’s largest fixed-price corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) in the UK.

From 1 May 2020, Nestlé UK will start purchasing 125 GWh of green power per year to cover 50 % of Nestlé UK power consumption.

The agreement, along with Nestlé UK’s already existing PPAs, secures that all of Nestlé UK’s consumption is covered by PPAs from renewable energy backed by certificates.

Stefano Agostini, CEO for Nestlé UK and Ireland, said: “I’m incredibly proud that at Nestlé we are doing the right thing to play our part in reducing climate change. With our partnership with Ørsted we are now able to cover 100 % of our electricity from wind power, another huge milestone in our efforts to become a sustainable business.” 

For Ørsted, the PPA stabilises revenues for Ørsted’s Race Bank offshore wind farm and reduces merchant power price exposure across the portfolio, the company said.

Rasmus Errboe, Senior Vice President and responsible for corporate PPAs at Ørsted Offshore, said: “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 Nestlé UK demonstrates offshore wind’s attractiveness as a reliable, large-scale source of green power and underlines Ørsted’s ambition to continue to be a leader within corporate PPAs for offshore wind.”

Commissioned in June 2018, the 573 MW Race Bank comprises 91 Siemens Gamesa 6MW wind turbines installed offshore North Norfolk.

In December 2019, Ørsted signed the world’s largest PPA for offshore wind with Covestro for 100 MW of the output from the Borkum Riffgrund 3 project in Germany. The corporate PPA with Nestlé UK is Ørsted’s second in the UK, following the 23 MW agreement with Northumbrian Water, signed in February 2019.