Leading global law firm Baker McKenzie has advised the world’s largest and most broadly-based healthcare company Johnson & Johnson on three separate virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) in Europe, significantly accelerating progress towards the company’s ambitious goal to meet 100% of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2025.
The three VPPAs include a mix of wind and solar projects in Spain for a total generation capacity of 104 megawatts (MW) or approximately 270,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable electricity annually; equivalent to avoiding the carbon emissions from more than 41,000 passenger cars per year. Developed by Enel Green Power, the wind and solar projects are expected to become operational in 2023, and would not have been financed and developed without Johnson & Johnson’s commitment, meaning the company is directly helping to accelerate the renewable energy transition in Europe.
The VPPAs will provide the equivalent of 100% renewable electricity for all Johnson & Johnson property sites across its three business sectors — pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health — in France, Germany, Spain, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, and Italy.
A cross-border Baker McKenzie team was led by London Associate Saskia Volhard and Senior Associate Graham Richmond, working with a team in Madrid led by Partner, Rossanna D'Onza, and Senior Associate, Paloma Moreno de la Santa. Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, acted as an advisor for Johnson & Johnson on the projects.
Graham said, “As the need for climate action grows, decarbonisation is becoming a major goal for more organizations, and procuring clean energy is a crucial strategy in this effort. We are thrilled to be leading in these efforts, and to work alongside Schneider Electric to help Johnson & Johnson not just on its VPPAs, but in directly helping to accelerate the renewable energy transition in Europe.”
Baker McKenzie has long pioneered the development of Corporate PPAs, having released numerous global reports over many years as PPAs have become increasingly popular and sophisticated products across multiple industries as a means of achieving sustainability-related goals.
Major corporate PPAs Baker McKenzie has advised on include:
- Novartis on five VPPAs with three developers expected to add more than 275 megawatts of clean power to the electrical grid.
- ALDI on two Corporate PPAs. An agreement with RATCH Australia provides for 19.4% of the electricity and green products (such as the certificates earned under federal regulations by the use of renewable energy) generated by the 227MW Collector Wind Farm in NSW. A second agreement, with Tilt Renewables, provides for 6% of the electricity and green products generated by the 336MW Dundonnell Wind Farm in Victoria.
- Lead counsel to a consortium of AkzoNobel, DSM, Philips and Google in contracting for 100 MW of renewable power in the Netherlands with respect to wind farm Krammer under a corporate PPA arrangement - a first of its kind in Europe.
- Cummins, Inc. in connection with the negotiation and execution of a synthetic power purchase agreement for the electrical output to be provided by a 75 MW wind energy project in Indiana that will be constructed, owned and operated by EDP Renewables North America LLC, a subsidiary of EDP Energias de Portugal.