French utility Engie has signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with steel producer Gerdau and Santiago de Chile airport operator, Nuevo Pudahuel.
Image: Engie to supply green electricity in Latin America. Photo: Courtesy of RK008 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Engie will supply power to Gerdau from its 130MW solar plant in Sonora in northern Mexico, which consists 400,000 solar panels. This solar farm is expected to begin operations next year and with this project online, the company will have a portfolio of 1GW of operations in the country.
The supply to the airport can help in reducing its carbon emissions by 35,700 tons per year. Under a 16 year agreement, the French energy company will supply the airport with 105GWh per year in green electricity to meet all of its power needs.
These two contracts follow other contracts that Engie has signed in Latin America in last one year with companies across different markets such as food, consumer goods, telecommunications, banking, services and construction.
Engie Latin America CEO Philip De Cnudde said: “These two contracts clearly illustrate our strategy to deliver renewable energy to B2B customers as part of our customer solutions offer in Latin America.”
Last November, the company had won four projects in long term electricity auction organized by Mexico’s National Center for Energy Control (CENACE). As part of this auction, the company had won a total of 687.8MW. Engie stated that the total estimated cost of these solar plants is $580m.
In October this year, Engie signed an agreement with Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) to supply over 50% of the energy needed for NWNA’s manufacturing and distribution facilities in Texas.
Under the agreement, NWNA operations in Travis, McLennan, Dallas, and Harris counties will be supplied by renewable wind energy from the Midway Wind Farm in San Patricio County, Texas, supporting Nestlé’s global goal to transition to 100% renewable energy use in its operations.
The agreement will include up to 70,500 renewable energy certificates (RECs) per year from Midway Wind.