CLEAN POWER PURCHASE

Tesco PLC and Shell PLC  have struck a deal to buy energy from the UK’s biggest solar farm, providing up to 10% of the supermarket chain’s UK electricity from next year and helping power the oil giant’s electric vehicle charging stations.

The 15-year deal for electricity from the 560,000 solar panel-strong Cleve Hill Solar Park site in Faversham, Kent is Tesco’s largest power purchase agreement to date, the FTSE 100 grocer said.

It will power the equivalent of 144 of Tesco’s large stores, with the 373-megawatt solar farm, currently under development by Texas-based Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, set to open in 2025.

“We’re delighted to be announcing such a significant step in our journey towards carbon neutrality across our own operations by 2035,” Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy said.

“With its ability to provide vital energy storage infrastructure, it’s a key part of the renewable energy strategy in the UK.”

Clean power purchase deals signed by Tesco, with the likes of ScottishPower, Schroders Greencoat and EDF, will collectively provide 45% of Tesco’s anticipated electricity demand by 2030, the UK’s largest supermarket added.

Shell, meanwhile, arranged a 10-year agreement with Quinbrook to manage the capacity secured under a contract-for-difference in the UK’s 2022 renewable power auction.

Some controversy surrounded the deal, however, as the project gained planning permission despite local opposition, where it was hoped the electricity from the site would be for residential use, with the output enough to power more than 100,000 homes.

Tesco’s deal covers 65% of the output from the site, with Shell taking the remaining 35%.

“This project was approved on the premise that it would power homes, not petrol stations and supermarkets,” Vicky Ellis, of the Kent branch of countryside charity CPRE, told the Telegraph.

“The irony of a major supermarket such as Tesco and a prominent oil producer such as Shell buying into the green energy market to run their petrol stations and supermarkets is not lost on us.

“We suspect this is another example of greenwashing,” said Ellis.

After years of local protests, the 860-acre scheme was approved in 2020, currently under construction on farmland near Graveney salt marshes.

An application for a 150-megawatt battery storage facility at the UK’s biggest solar farm was refused earlier this year, as campaigners raised safety concerns about the lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) batteries used to store the energy.

LFP batteries are “more subject to explosion risk than other types,” according to a Swale Borough Council report.

Source: Proactive Investors