Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, today announced a 10-year virtual power purchasing agreement (VPPA) with international renewable energy developer X-ELIO designed to increase access to renewable electricity across the pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chains. The Lorca solar project is expected to be operational in early 2026 and includes a cohort of three partners from the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
Thermo Fisher’s share of Lorca solar, together with the Serbal solar project announced in December 2023, will match all of the company’s addressable European sites with 100 percent renewable electricity. The project also accelerates progress toward the company’s goal of achieving 80 percent global renewable electricity by 2030. Thermo Fisher’s 73 MW portion of the Lorca solar project will generate approximately 150,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity annually–equivalent to powering approximately 40,500 European homes for one year.1
The aggregated share of Lorca solar will simultaneously reduce Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions for Thermo Fisher and the cohort of value chain partners—GSK, Gilead Sciences and Haleon—who participated in the agreement through the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries’ Energize initiative. Scope 2 emissions include those from purchased electricity to power a company’s facilities, while Scope 3 includes emissions from value chain partners.
“When we collaborate with our customers and suppliers, we accelerate our collective progress toward net-zero emissions,” said Konrad Bauer, senior vice president, global business services, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “Achieving 100 percent renewable electricity for our European sites is a significant milestone on our journey, and as cohort lead for this agreement facilitated by the Energize initiative, we are committed to leveraging our experience and insights to help enable similar milestones for our partners.”
The Energize initiative, managed by Schneider Electric together with the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, is a collaborative partnership among the world’s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and their suppliers that works to increase access to renewable electricity, drive supply chain decarbonization and accelerate action across the sector. Thermo Fisher joined Energize in 2021 to support its own renewable electricity adoption strategy, a key component of the company’s comprehensive net-zero strategy. Thermo Fisher was elected cohort lead for the Lorca solar VPPA, underscoring its industry leadership on the path to net zero emissions by 2050.
“Making the most out of our energy and resources is crucial as we collectively move toward more sustainable solutions across industries and around the world,” said John Powers, vice president, global renewables at Schneider Electric. “The Energize program aims to drive supply chain decarbonization across the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries while serving as a playbook for other sectors as they look to power their operations with renewable energy.”
Thermo Fisher established its global renewable electricity commitment in 2023, in alignment with the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Health Systems Task Force joint supplier standards. This followed the company’s raised commitment to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50 percent by 2030 against a 2018 baseline, as well as its plans to power all of the company’s U.S. sites with 100 percent renewable electricity by 2026.
