Industrial, Sourcing Renewables, Wind  -  August 3, 2018

Novartis signs 12-year wind VPPA

NJ Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., an affiliate of Novartis, has signed a virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Invenergy for 100 megawatts of wind power from their Santa Rita East wind farm, located west of San Angelo, Texas. The wind farm is expected to be online in 2019.

"At Novartis, we take our responsibility toward environmental sustainability seriously and it is important for our organization to meet our sustainability goals," said Karen Coyne, global head of environment at Novartis in a statement. "This agreement is in line with our sustainability strategy and is expected to help us reduce our carbon footprint, constrain costs and increase adoption of renewable energy."

The VPPA is expected to deliver 100 MW of new wind power capacity to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) that operates the electric grid and manages the deregulated market for 75% of the state.

According to the statement, the 12-year agreement is expected to reduce Novartis greenhouse gas emissions by more than 220,000 metric tons per year through the issuance of renewable energy attributes that Novartis will use to account and report on its greenhouse gas Scope 2 emissions. This represents over 70% of the Novartis carbon footprint from purchased electricity in the US market.

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