Nestlé Australia switches to 100 pct renewables with CWP wind farm deal

The Australian offshoot of global food giant Nestlé says it is switching to a 100 per cent renewable energy supply after signing a 10-year power purchase agreement with CWP Renewables.

The long term PPA’s have been signed with CWP’s 270MW Sapphire and the 134MW Crudine Ridge wind farms in NSW, and will be enough to cover all of the electricity needs of six factories, two distribution centres, three corporate offices, and 20 retail facilities and a laboratory.

Sapphire, located in northern NSW, already has a significant contract with ACT government, and other customers such as Woolworths Group, Sydney Airport, the Commonwealth Bank, and Transurban.

Crudine Ridge is still working through its commissioning process and is expecting to reach its full output in early 2022.

The contract with Nestlé, effectively immediately, is for 106GWh of wind output a year. As a guide, Sapphire produces around 830GWh of electricity a year.

Corporate customers are playing an increasingly important role in driving investment in new wind and solar projects, and also supporting existing ones.

Jason Willoughby, the CEO of CWP Renewables said said the deal with Nestlé Australia would support critical regional investment, around 20 local operations jobs, plus more across maintenance, and around $8.55M in community benefit funding throughout the life of the farms.

Sandra Martinez, the CEO of Nestlé Oceania said: “I am proud that we’ve been able to accelerate switching to 100% renewable electricity for our sites, but there’s still more to be done. This is one more step on our roadmap.”

Greenpeace Australia noted that Nestlé Australia is following in the steps of other food and beverage companies such as Mars Australia, Coca-Cola Amatil, and McCains in shifting to 100 per cent renewables.

“While this doesn’t make your favourite snack food entirely guilt free, it’s a positive move for the climate and Australia’s unstoppable energy transition,” said Lindsay Soutar, the head Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s REenergise campaign.

Soutar said Greenpeace still has concerns about Nestlé’s use of plastics and palm oil, “which is causing devastation in forests across the world.”