Fossil-free electricity for the energy transition: Vattenfall and Wieland enter into partnership

 

The energy supplier Vattenfall and the Wieland Group - a leading supplier of semi-finished products made of copper and copper alloys based in Ulm, Germany - are driving the decarbonization of industrial production. The companies expect a new ten-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to provide investment security, a price guarantee and risk diversification for both parties. From 2025 on, a solar park in Nauen, Brandenburg, Germany, will provide fossil-free, renewable energy for metalworking processes. The PV project has a capacity of 46 megawatts. Together, Vattenfall and Wieland are creating the basis for an increasingly climate-neutral energy transition in e-mobility, power and data transmission as well as heating solutions.

"The demand for fossil-free energy partnerships for our solar and wind power plants has been increasing noticeably," emphasizes Christine zu Putlitz, who is responsible for marketing renewable energy at Vattenfall. "Our energy partnership with Wieland is an example of how entire value chains can be made fossil-free in practice. Because it decarbonizes precisely those metalworking processes that ultimately form the basis for products and services central to the energy transition - including our own."

"Based on our sustainability strategy, we are consistently driving forward the reduction of emissions. In addition to our own renewable energy production through photovoltaic systems, Wieland has set itself the ambitious goal of using 100 percent renewable energy for its electrified production facilities in the future," explains Dr. Erwin Mayr, CEO of the Wieland Group. "Therefore, the energy partnership with Vattenfall represents another important milestone for climate protection and the achievement of our sustainability goals.”

In detail, the agreement - a so-called Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) - provides for the supply of electricity from a Vattenfall solar park in Brandenburg to the copper and metal specialist Wieland over a period of ten years. The solar park is located in Nauen, about 40 kilometers west of Berlin, Germany. It is currently under development and is expected to be completed and connected to the grid in 2025. Around 46 gigawatt hours of electricity per year will then be used for the metalworking processes - equivalent to the annual energy consumption of more than ten thousand households. Over the entire period, Vattenfall will supply Wieland with approximately 460 gigawatt hours of electricity, saving approximately 29,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

As a result of the partnership, Wieland-Werke AG will be able to cover around ten percent of its energy requirements in Germany through renewable energy. For the company, the partnership with Vattenfall is a further step on the way to "net zero emissions" by 2045 – as is the construction of a solar park in Erbach near the company's headquarters in Ulm: On an area of 24 hectares, it is building one of the largest solar parks in southern Germany, saving Wieland around 18,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year in the future.

Following the political decision against a subsidized industrial electricity price in Germany, experts expect the demand for electricity partnerships between producers and industrial companies to increase in the coming years. Vattenfall's project pipeline for future Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) is also very well filled: Up to 28 new solar parks with a capacity of around 2 gigawatts are planned in Germany by the end of 2026, which could be marketed via energy partnerships. Vattenfall is also planning to invest in more than 1.6 gigawatts of offshore capacity in Germany. According to a study by the German Energy Agency (Dena), the volume of PPAs in Germany could rise to 192 terawatt hours by 2030 – covering a quarter of Germany's total electricity demand.

The political agreement on the EU energy market reform could also help. The planned regulations provide for the introduction of simplified state credit guarantees for private electricity supply contracts by member states. If this instrument is also introduced in Germany, the PPA market should receive a further boost.

 

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[Image] With this partnership, Vattenfall and Wieland are creating the basis for an increasingly climate-neutral energy transition.

 

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Wieland Group
Dr. Wolfgang Albeck | Director Corporate Communications
Graf-Arco-Straße 36 | 89079 Ulm | Germany 
P +49 152 59719639  | press@wieland.com