IKEA buys $373M solar park projects in Germany, Spain to generate renewable energy

IKEA's owner Ingka Group bought nine solar photovoltaic (PV) park projects in Spain and Germany. The company made the $373 million or €340 million purchase to achieve its plan of generating more renewable energy than it consumes.

According to Reuters, the Swedish furniture retailer revealed on Wednesday, April 6, that it has procured the projects that have a collective capacity of 440 megawatts. The solar park was purchased by the Ingka Group from Enerparc, a German developer.

The move to have the solar park project aligns well with IKEA's goal to be climate positive by helping reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its entire store chain by the year 2030. It was mentioned that as part of its efforts to become eco-friendly, the company now owns 547 wind turbines in 14 countries, 935,000 solar panels installed in stores and warehouses, and 10 solar parks. The solar panels produce over four terawatt-hours of electricity.

Market Watch further reported that the nine solar parks that were obtained from Enerparc include five projects in Spain and four in Germany. Once completed, the energy that they will produce is enough to power all the IKEA store outlets, including the warehouses in the said countries.

At this time, the solar park projects are still in the early phase of development. They will be ready for construction by the end of this year, and work will continue until 2023. The setting up is expected to be completed within half a year.

"The expected production will be sufficient to cover all IKEA stores and warehouses in the two countries, making the operations of Ingka Group climate positive," the Ingka Group said in a statement. "The projects are at early stages and are expected to become ready for construction at the end of 2022, continuing into 2023 and the construction itself will take roughly six months."

Finally, as part of IKEA and Ingka Group's €6.5 billion initiative to support 100% renewable energy consumption across its value chain and beyond, the companies have committed to invest more than €2.7 billion into renewable energy programs in solar and solar power.