Nike has signed a clean-energy power purchasing agreement (PPA) – its first in Europe – with Iberdrola of Spain, regarded as the world's leading provider of wind power. The deal purchases 40 megawatts from Cavar, a wind farm in northern Spain that Iberdrola will finish building in 2020 and should have a total capacity of 111 MW. Nike aims to have all of its European offices running on renewable energy by 2020. This latest deal is in fact the company's third with Iberdrola. In January 2017, for instance, Nike signed a PPA with Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, for 86 megawatts of wind power generated in Texas. At the time, Nike called that deal an important step toward full reliance on renewable energy for all its North American facilities. According to Noel Kinder, the current chief sustainability officer, Nike now has the deals in place to achieve that goal. In all, Iberdrola will soon be supplying Nike with a total of 220 megawatts in wind power. Iberdrola has been signing PPAs with global companies in the U.S. and Mexico for a while and is now transferring the business model to Europe. The utility has arranged to work with the Nuñez de Balboa solar plant, soon to be Europe's largest. Its recent PPAs with Euskaltel, Kutxabank and Uvesco are the first such agreements in Spain's banking, telecommunications and distribution sectors.

Topics