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    Healthcare Sector's Energize Initiative Acquiring 245 GWh of Spanish Solar in 10-year Multi-Buyer PPA

    Feb. 10, 2025
    Those companies within the Energize group include Haleon, GSK, Gilead Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The investment focuses on 245 GWh of future power output from developer X-ELIO’s Lorca Solar project
    Combined Dreamstime images. Healthcare image credit ID 333055518 Oleg Lryuchko/Solar image credit ID 330477079 Artinun Prekoung/Dreamstime
    Combined Dreamstime images. Healthcare image credit ID 333055518 Oleg Lryuchko/Solar image credit ID 330477079 Artinun Prekoung/Dreamstime

    A group of healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are banding together to invest in a multi-buyer power purchase agreement for an upcoming utility-scale solar farm being built in Spain.

    The Energize initiative is a collaboration of companies acquiring 245 GWh of renewable energy over a 10-year period of the PPA. Those companies within the Energize group include Haleon, GSK, Gilead Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The investment focuses on future power output of developer X-ELIO’s Lorca Solar project expected to be operational by early 2026.

    Schneider Electric serves as advisor for the Energize group and helped facilitate the PPA which will help the companies offset their energy use and avoid more than 400,000 metric tons of carbon emissions per year.

    “The Energize program aims to drive supply chain carbonization across the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries while serving as a playbook for other sectors as they look to tackle the most notoriously challenging aspects of decarbonization – Scope 3 emissions,” said John Powers, Vice President, Global Renewable at Schneider Electric.

    Thermo Fisher Scientific served as the lead negotiator supporting the group of companies during the PPA negotiations, which led to a combined investment in the supply of renewable electricity.

     A first part of the Energize multi-buyer PPA was announced in September 2024. The initial agreement accounted for 563 GWh of renewable power over 10 years.

    “Collaboration is key to achieving our environmental sustainability goals and by partnering with like-minded organizations, we can amplify our impact and drive meaningful change,” said Sarah McDonald, VP of Sustainability at Haleon. “This initiative is a vital part of our aim to reach net-zero carbon emissions from source to sale by 2040.”

    The largest estimated emissions driver for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector is the supply chain, which accounts for over 50 percent of emissions. Twenty-four pharmaceutical and healthcare companies sponsor the Energize program, managed by Schneider Electric, to provide renewable electricity education and procurement support at no cost for their suppliers. The support authorizes suppliers for solid steps towards achieving decarbonization goals.

    Multi-buyer PPAs aggregate the electricity demand of multiple organizations into a single contract. This structure allows more companies access into renewable energy investments while reducing costs, according to Schneider Electric.

    The Energize healthcare multi-buyer PPA accounts for about 35% of X-ELIO’s Lorca Solar project. Lorca is estimated to generate a capacity of 369 MW when it is operational in early 2026.

    The healthcare industry accounts for almost 5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to reports. The U.S. healthcare sector is the industry’s No. 1 emitter, totaling more than 50 times the emissions of India’s sector, according to a group report by Health Care Without Harm and research partner Arup.

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    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.