In November 2020, ACCIONA and Novartis announced that they had signed two ten-year virtual power purchase agreements (PPAs) for clean energy to global medicines company Novartis that will involve the development of two new photovoltaic (PV) plants in Spain. The new PV plants will have a combined capacity of 210MWp (169MW nominal). ACCIONA will provide 135MW of clean electricity to Novartis to help the company to reduce its emissions and achieve its target of becoming carbon neutral by 2025.
Novartis aims to achieve 100% renewable energy use across all its global operations, and the PPAs signed with ACCIONA will address approximately 50% of the Novartis target for 100% renewable electricity in Europe. For these new contracts, ACCIONA will be developing two PV plants in Spain. A new Extremadura plant will have a 125MWp (100MW nominal) capacity and will be located in Almendralejo, in the province of Badajoz. The second plant will have an 85.7MWp (69MW nominal) capacity and will straddle the municipalities of Jarafuel y Ayora in Valencia. ACCIONA will invest a total of around €120 million in the two new plants.
Around 80% of the output will go towards backing the virtual PPAs with Novartis. The plant in Extremadura is expected to start operations in Q4 2022 and Valencian plant in Q1 2023.