RES secured Australia's first ever utility scale grid connected corporate PPA.

In early 2017, Australian businesses were facing energy price rises of around 20 percent. Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications and media company approached RES to discuss PPA options to achieve price security and improved sustainability. Telstra are one of Australia’s largest energy users – accounting for around 1 percent of the country’s total consumption.

The team at RES were able to draw upon their global market-leading expertise in securing over 1 GW of offtake agreements with some of the world’s most forward-thinking companies including General Motors, Google and Microsoft.

RES quickly identified one of their solar projects currently in development that would meet Telstra’s energy needs. Emerald Solar farm is located in Queensland, Australia with a 70 MW capacity, enough to generate electricity eqivalent to supplying 35,000 homes. RES worked closely with Telstra to agree the PPA contract which was signed in May 2017.

James Gerraty, Telstra Energy’s former General Manager for Strategy and Commercial, said it had secured long-term supply and price security “well below the current market level”.

Ben Burge, Former Executive Director of Telstra Energy, said “The agreement was an important step in enabling Telstra to more actively manage energy consumption and costs, whilst also contributing to reducing emissions and stimulating investment in regional Australia”.

Australia’s first corporate PPA signed in May 2017 was followed soon afterwards in 2017 when Telstra clubbed together a consortium of Australian corporations to purchase the power from the first phase of Murra Warra wind farm. (226 MW equivalent to powering 220,000 Australian homes each year). This is located in North West Victoria, Australia and when construction of both phases is complete, will become one of the largest wind farms in the southern hemisphere.

In total this wind farm will reduce greenhouse gases by 900,000 tonnes per year.

The consortium was led by Telstra and included ANZ, Coca-Cola Amatil, the University of Melbourne and Monash University. The PPA contract for Murra Warra included:

• Energy buyers paying a fixed electricity price throughout contract life;
• Telstra Energy responsible for large-scale generation certificates, (a form of “green product”) creation and transfer to buyers;
• Identical contract terms for each buyer, with the exception on the volumes of power and therefore generation certificates;
• A structure that enables financial hedging for buyers against retail
  electricity prices