UK – The Dutch dairy co-operative, FrieslandCampina has announced that it will be purchasing green electricity directly from its member dairy farmers through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
The farmer-owned dairy processor noted that the power purchase agreements will go beyond the Guarantees of Origin (GoOs), that are now commonplace, by allowing ‘grey’ purchased energy to become green.
A GoO is a certified proof that energy has been generated sustainably. In the traditional model, in which electricity and GoOs are sold separately, several parties are active in the chain, with each party adding costs.
Through the PPAs, FrieslandCampina says that it can directly purchase green energy from member dairy farmers, thanks to FrieslandCampina’s unique construction between the cooperative and the company.
“It is possible to maintain this value within the dairy chain with direct contracts, and the producer is immediately rewarded in line with the market by its own dairy company,” the dairy processor said.
At present, FrieslandCampina revealed that more than 50 member dairy farmers already supply green energy to the company via PPAs. To facilitate this, FrieslandCampina works together with CNS, a specialist in this field, for the PPA.
According to the dairy giant, the energy supplied by the 50 member dairy farmers already accounts for about 10% of the Dutch electricity needs of the dairy company.
FrieslandCampina believes that expanding the initiative will significantly strengthen its ambitions of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. By the end of 2019, 94% of its worldwide electricity usage was ‘green’.
The company is also implementing solar and wind electricity generation programmes to further accelerate its sustainable energy generation on the farm.
In August 2019, the company installed its first small windmillon the farmyard of the dairy farm Poppe in Zwolle as part of a programme that offers its member dairy farmers the opportunity to install small windmills to make their own farm self-sufficient with energy.
The company has also installed more than 840,000 solar panels in collaboration with its dairy farmers in Netherlands.
