Novartis Announces US Renewables Agreement to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

On Aug 3, 2018

Novartis, in East Hanover, announced a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) in collaboration with Invenergy, North America’s largest privately held renewable energy company. As part of the Novartis environmental strategy, the initiative aims to add 100 megawatts (MW) of wind power to the electrical grid.

Under the agreement, the electricity will be generated from Invenergy’s Santa Rita East wind farm, located 70 miles west of San Angelo, Texas and is expected to be online in 2019. During the construction phase, the wind farm could create up to 300 jobs and 12-15 permanent jobs once operational.

“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. “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.”

In line with its ongoing global sustainability strategy, Novartis collaborates to create virtual power purchase agreements, power purchase agreements and procurement options for green power solutions. Energy efficiency is the cornerstone of reducing the company’s carbon footprint while also pursuing renewables initiatives in multiple markets.

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 percent of the state.

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 equates to removing more than 48,000 passenger vehicles from the road on an annual basis1 and represents over 70 percent of the Novartis carbon footprint from purchased electricity in the US market.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Novartis and applaud their commitment to environmentally and economically responsible operations,” said Jim Shield, Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer at Invenergy.

Jay Zoellner, CEO of Edison Energy, commented that “we’re proud to have collaborated with Novartis to find a project that supported their vision of improving their bottom line while supporting their sustainability goals.” Edison Energy conducted a competitive project solicitation as the buyer’s agent for Novartis and supported the financial analysis to support the project’s long-term success.

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