Charles River, Repsol Enter into Wind Contract for European Operations

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. announced a wind energy contract with Repsol to address the entirety of the Company’s European power requirements with renewable energy by 2023.

Charles River has entered into a virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Repsol, a multi-energy company, for wind energy in Spain. The contract is for 30.5 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, which is equivalent to avoiding carbon emissions from the annual electricity consumption of more than 28,000 homes.

The VPPA is associated with a wind farm that is part of Repsol's Delta II project. Repsol continues to promote its low carbon generation business through the development of quality and profitable renewable assets. The project has already begun construction and, once completed in 2023, will have a total capacity of 860 MW distributed among 26 wind farms located in the Spanish region of Aragon.

Renewable power generation is one of the pillars of Repsol's decarbonization strategy. As a result, Repsol recently raised its installed capacity targets for 2030 to 20 gigawatts (GW), an increase of 60% over the previous target. By 2025, installed capacity will increase to 6 GW.

This VPPA is the second of Charles River’s recent sustainability announcements related to renewable electricity—in June 2021, Charles River announced a solar contract to address the entirety of its North American electric power requirements.

That project is also on track to begin providing Charles River with renewable energy benefits by 2023. As a result of the two VPPA’s, Charles River anticipates that 90% of all its global electricity will be supplied by renewable energy by 2023.