Green electricity for fuel supply chains

More and more companies from various industries are focusing on sustainability. A long-term, reliable power supply from renewable energies is not "nice to have", but a "must have" instead. This also holds true for the big players in the petroleum industry. Axpo is supporting them with renewable energies: The Spanish CLH Group, which operates numerous facilities and pipelines for the storage and transport of petroleum, has concluded a ten-year PPA with Axpo Iberia.

With this power purchase agreement, which corresponds to 20% of the company's energy consumption, CLH can continue its strategy to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% by the year 2025, and to become completely emissions-free by the year 2050. In doing so, the Spanish market leader for petroleum logistics with headquarters in Madrid is following the conventions agreed to at the UN Climate Change Conference in December 2015 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Precisely tailored to customer needs

Axpo Iberia's services and know-how in the area of power purchase agreements with renewable energies are just what CLH was looking for: The Axpo subsidiary offers its customers in Spain and Portugal a broad range of solutions for long-term energy management tailored to customer needs and adapted to market conditions.

Ignacio Soneira, Managing Director of Axpo Iberia, explains how this applies to the CLH Group: "CLH outlined its needs and we made an offer based on this input. Now the company can benefit from an extremely competitive fixed price for electricity from renewable energy over a period of ten years. In addition, we provide the CLH Group with detailed guarantees of origin which contribute to the achievement of the company's sustainability goals."

Ignacio Soneira points out that this PPA is also very beneficial for Axpo Iberia: "We are consolidating a new business segment that will strengthen our market position in the long term and support Axpo Iberia's sustainable growth."

Significant reduction of CO2 emissions

Jorge Lanza, CEO of the CLH Group, is pleased about the agreement with Axpo Iberia: "Thanks to this PPA, CLH's power supply comes from 100% renewable energy. That is very important to us because power consumption is our company's main emission source. Thanks to the PPA with Axpo Iberia we can prevent the release of over 13,600 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere per year."

The CLH Group is a domestic market leader in the transport and storage of petroleum. In Europe it is the second largest logistics company in relation to the expansion of its pipeline network and the capacity of its storage facilities. Alone in Spain, CLH has over 39 storage facilities with a capacity of 8 million cubic-metres and pipelines covering over 4,000 kilometres to connect Spain's refineries with the company's storage facilities.

CLH's tanker fleet supplies the most important oil companies with petrol, diesel, kerosene and heating oil, which they in turn sell at their filling stations. CLH also operates facilities at the most important Spanish airports and fuel terminals for the shipping industry. Internationally the company is pursuing ambitious growth plans in Great Britain, Ireland, Oman, Panama and Ecuador.

Sustainable international expansion

"In view of our expansion strategy, it is all the more important for the CLH Group that we continue our efforts to reduce energy consumption. We want to replace older facilities and machines with more efficient models and take advantage of technical advances to enable a further reduction of CO2 emissions," says Jorge Lanza. In addition, CLH is working together with well-known representatives from the petroleum industry to develop environmentally friendly fuels and assessing the options to produce its own electricity from renewable energy sources. "To do so we need strong partners."

More cooperation possible

Of course, the cooperation with this ambitious customer is also of great interest for Axpo. In a consortium with other pioneers from the renewable energy sector, the Axpo Nordic subsidiary in Sweden recently announced the construction of the first plant for the production of eMethanol, a CO2-neutral fuel (read more details here). In addition, as a leading provider of power purchase agreements from renewable energies and leading wind farm and solar plant developer in Europe, Axpo has the necessary know-how to support industrial companies in their plans for more ecological power supply.