The Iliad Group, a large telecom company with activities in France, Italy, Poland and Ireland, has closed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Engie for the supply of EKOenergy-labelled electricity.

A PPA is a long-term agreement between an energy producer and a large energy consumer. It ensures a level of predictability and stability to all involved parties and helps reduce the risks related to the financing and operation of power plants.

The Iliad Group will buy EKOenergy-labelled electricity generated by the Labrit solar farm for the next 15 years. The Labrit solar farm is located in the Landes region (France), has approximately 60,000 solar panels, and produces more than 20 GWh per year.

By choosing to add the EKOenergy ecolabel to the megawatt-hours originating from the Labrit solar farm, as well as to all the other electricity they procure, the Iliad Group
- proves that their energy comes from installations that have minimal impact on local biodiversity,
- helps us as an initiative of environmental NGOs to promote renewable energy worldwide,
- contributes to the financing of new solar projects in developing countries through our Climate Fund (see also chapter 5 of this newsletter),
- can use our internationally recognised logo in their communications.

Think globally, act locally! Thanks a lot to all those who made this deal possible. Read more about the PPA between the Iliad Group and Engie on our website.

The German multinational software company SAP has been using EKOenergy-labelled electricity since 2016. In a recent article on their website, SAP lists many of the reasons for choosing EKOenergy-labelled electricity: 1) increased credibility,  2) strict sustainability criteria, 3) internationally recognised mark of quality, 4) explicitly mentioned by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, CDP, RE100, and LEED for green buildings, 5) annual audits, and more.

The article also gives a good example of how EKOenergy consumers help us promote renewable energy worldwide. When the EKOenergy label became available in China in 2016, we worked with SAP to identify renewable energy solutions there. Their interest helped and encouraged us to focus more on Asia by translating parts of our texts to Chinese and other Asian languages, as well as reaching out to more local companies.

We want to thank SAP for putting their trust in our ecolabel. Together we can achieve more.

 

- SAP, in a recent article about their choice of EKOenergy-labelled electricity

We were a proud supporter of the annual REC Market Meeting conference once again. The 11th edition of the REC Market Meeting took place on the 25th and 26th of April in Amsterdam. The theme was “Maximising renewable opportunities”.

It was inspiring to meet 500+ renewable energy enthusiasts from all over the world, and it was also very encouraging to receive positive comments about our ecolabel. Many thanked us for the concrete results of the past years and for our user-friendly procedures. Our most successful authorised sellers are confident that the demand for EKOenergy-labelled energy will continue to grow.

Here are 3 of our takeaways from the conference:

- Interest in renewable energy grows each year, and so does the willingness to pay for it. In Europe, the demand for renewable energy is now bigger than the supply.
- The pressure on companies to include additional requirements is growing too. Standard-setting organisations, NGOs, researchers and many others expect  companies to do more to take the environment into account and speed up the energy transition.
- Many new players are entering the renewable energy sphere. It was nice to see so many new faces.

Over the past decade, EKOenergy has evolved from an ambitious European initiative to an internationally recognised and globally available ecolabel for renewable energy, across 70 countries on all continents.

2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of our ecolabel. For this occasion, we’re publishing a series of fact sheets highlighting various aspects of our work and listing some of our achievements.

The first fact sheets are about:
- transparent decision-making (pdf, 1 page),
- productive cooperation (pdf, 1 page),
- multilingual communication (pdf, 1 page),
- renewable energy campaigns (pdf, 1 page), and
- working with energy consumers of all sizes (pdf, 1 page).

Stay tuned for more!

 

- Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency, 11 April 2023

For every MWh of EKOenergy, 0.10 € goes to EKOenergy's Climate Fund to finance new renewable energy projects in developing countries. These projects improve the living standards of local communities and contribute to the realisation of multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

The support for local renewable energy projects is one of the most visible components of EKOenergy's ongoing work to promote renewable energy worldwide and one of the ways we help consumers make an additional positive impact.

Authorised sellers and EKOenergy consumers regularly contact us to learn more about the selection process and about the concrete results of the projects.

If you want to learn more, check out the following materials or feel free to contact us for more information.

 

- Instituto Totum, Brazil, writing about EKOenergy in their latest newsletter

EKOenergy is one of the 600+ groups and organisations that endorsed the newest Banking on Climate Chaos report. This report examines commercial and investment bank financing for the fossil fuel industry, aggregating their leading roles in lending and underwriting debt and equity issuances.


Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached USD $5.5 trillion in the seven years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $673 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2022 alone. Fossil fuel financing plateaued in 2020, rebounded in 2021 and levelled out again in 2022 owing to unusual geopolitical and economic conditions, not shifts in bank policy.


Despite throwing around a lot of climate-friendly buzzwords, banks' policies could be doing more to align with global climate commitments. Of the 60 banks that are profiled in the report, 59 do not have policies robust enough to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C. Some banks strengthened their policies, but few are sufficient to meet the current challenge.

Follow EKOenergy on social media to get relevant updates about the climate crisis, renewable energy and climate action worldwide.

Here are some recent posts:
 

• Nice to see our poster at the General Assembly of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe. If you want a closer look at the poster, check it out via this link. (from our LinkedIn)
   
• EKO-Federica used our team as a test audience for her presentation. She did us proud! If you want to learn more about all the benefits of using our label in Italian, get in touch! By the way, similar presentations are available in many other languages too. (from our Facebook)
   
• Thanks Matheus, from South Pole, for mentioning EKOenergy in your presentation at the REC Market Meeting. Helping consumers make an additional positive impact. (from our Twitter)
   
• Users of EKOenergy-labelled energy enable us to set up renewable energy campaigns that target energy consumers across the world. We are now finalising the preparation of our next renewable energy campaign, which will focus on energy consumption in the food industry: EKO-appetite. (from our LinkedIn)
   
• On Earth Day, we remember how closely we are connected to the Earth, as well as our responsibility to protect it. (from our Instagram)

The fourth annual Global Electricity Review from energy think tank Ember presents electricity data from 2022 across 78 countries, representing 93% of global electricity demand. The open data and in-depth analysis provide the first accurate picture of the global electricity transition in 2022.

Solar was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the eighteenth year in a row, rising by 24% year-on-year and adding enough electricity to power all of South Africa. Wind generation increased by 17% in 2022, enough to power almost all of the UK.

In spite of the global gas crisis and fears of a return to coal, it was that rise in wind and solar that limited the increase in coal generation (+1.1%). Gas power generation fell very slightly (-0.2%) in 2022. Overall, that still meant that power sector emissions increased by 1.3% in 2022, reaching an all-time high.

The report forecasts that last year may be the ‘peak’ of electricity emissions and the final year of fossil power growth, with clean power meeting all demand growth this year. In that scenario, there would be a small fall in fossil generation (-0.3%) in 2023, with larger falls in subsequent years as wind and solar deployment accelerates.