French oil giant Total signed a deal with the Spanish developer Ignis to develop 3.3 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects to increase Spain’s renewables reliance to 100% by 2050, Total announced on Friday.
The project, which will be located close to Madrid and Andalusia, is scheduled to start in 2022 with a production start targeted for 2025, Total said in a statement.
“This will be the largest corporate PPA in the world,” the company stressed, adding that it would also be supplying all its European sites with competitive green electricity, which would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 2 million tonnes per year.
Total said the agreement with Ignis would add more than 5 GW of solar projects to its portfolio for development in Spain with the aim of covering all the electricity consumption of its industrial sites in Europe by 2025.
With this aim, the company said it would purchase nearly 6 terawatt-hours per year of green electricity generated by its Spanish solar sites through a power purchase agreement covering more than 3 GW of solar farms.
“Our ambition, first and foremost, is to provide a clean, affordable electricity offering to our residential customers in Spain. Spain is a priority country for Total in Europe and we fully intend to leverage the market’s growth opportunities that the country offers to respond concretely to the challenges of the energy transition towards carbon neutrality,' Patrick Pouyanne, chairman of Total was quoted as saying in the statement.
The addition of the latest deal to Total’s overall portfolio will position the company as a major player in the country's energy transition, contributing to Spain's ambition to generate 70% of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and to 100% by the middle of the century.
The deal came after the two agreements that Total signed in February 2020 with Powertis and Solarbay Renewable Energy to develop nearly 2 GW of solar projects; and the company’s acquisition last May from Energias de Portugal of its portfolio of 2.5 million residential customers and two gas-fired combined cycle power plants of 850 megawatts.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency
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