2024 will be the year automotive steers hard towards renewable energy

Mr. Krušpán, is the automotive sector a big driver of interest in PPAs?

In Europe, the market for auto industry PPAs started to take off about three years ago. The sector is now seventh on the list in terms of contracted capacity – still well behind ICT and heavy industry, but progressing fast. Right now, Renault and Mercedes-Benz are the only two auto firms in the group of 30 leading companies for PPAs in Europe, but we expect 2024 to be the year when things really start to accelerate, including in SEE.

Why are you so confident that 2024 will be a transformative year? 

For two main reasons:

First, if you look at the sector across the whole of Central & Southeastern Europe, it is dominated by the biggest names in the industry worldwide – Renault, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, Stellantis etc. All of these companies have committed to firm decarbonisation deadlines. If they are to be met, decisions over clean power cannot be deferred and PPAs are one of the most impactful ways of reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions cost effectively.

Second, globally, the rate of progress in green energy buying amongst the OEMs has been closely dependent on the renewable generation capacity in the region where manufacturing plants are based. Renewable capacity is now coming on-stream in volume in SEE, so the demand for clean power can finally be met.

So are you mainly targeting OEMs?

No. Many of the companies I mentioned have committed to carbon neutrality along the entire production chain – so Scope 3 as well. There are a huge number of companies in these supply chains, and if they want to hold on to those contracts, they will need to reduce their own emissions, and demonstrate that they have done so. For them, sourcing clean power is about securing their long-term future.

Why sign a PPA with Rezolv rather than another renewable energy developer?

The scale of our projects is a big advantage. It gives us greater flexibility to shape PPAs to customers’ specific needs. Also, by signing a PPA with Rezolv, customers have the opportunity to help build iconic projects which will contribute to national emissions reduction targets, create jobs and deliver long-term value for local communities. These are projects with which any company would be proud to be associated.

When might we see the first Rezolv PPA with an automotive customer in SEE?

Very soon – watch this space!