Co-op will enter a seven-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with RWE to utilise energy from a North Wales wind farm.

Under the new agreement, RWE will supply Co-op with a total volume of 33GWh of electricity annually produced from the Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm to help power the Co-op estate, including food stores and distribution centres across the UK.

The Gwynt y Môr wind farm is located in the Irish Sea, off the coast of North Wales. Operated by RWE, it is Wales’s largest offshore wind farm and comprises 160 turbines with a capacity of 576MW. The wind farm is owned by a consortium of RWE, Stadtwerke München GmbH and Macquarie GIG.

Recently Co-op has installed solar panels at its largest depot in Biggleswade, with plans to install solar panels on up to 700 sites across its food, funeralcare and logistic portfolio over the next three years, and signed a PPA with a new solar farm in Cambridgeshire,

An agreement in 2023 to take the entire output of a new 34MW solar farm, located in North Yorkshire, is also set to be in operation next year.

Co-op has committed to reaching net-zero across its operations by 2035 and entire business by 2040. In March 2024, Co-op became one of the first UK convenience retailer to have its net-zero targets validated by the globally-recognised Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). In its updated Climate Action Plan, Co-op further committed to sourcing renewable energy via corporate PPAs and investing in supporting suppliers and producers to reduce absolute carbon emissions.

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