Our three Polish breweries, operated by Kompania Piwowarska, will use 100% renewable electricity – from power supplier Innogy – to cover their power needs as of January 2021. On November 5, we signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for ten years to supply the breweries with green electricity generated by Innogy’s Polish wind farm Nowy Staw.

As soon as in 2021, we will be brewing a third of our volume in Central Europe with 100% renewable electricity. This is the equivalent of 3 billion beer bottles every year. In Poland, we will thus be able to reduce our carbon footprint by 66% compared to 2019, which means that 7.5 thousand hectares of forest will not need to absorb carbon dioxide released by Kompania Piwowarska during beer production.

The news is even better because this is the first time that a PPA has been signed in Poland for supply from a planned wind farm that is not benefiting from any state-supported mechanism to produce renewable energy. The contract, covering our three breweries in Poland – Tyskie Browary Książęce in Tychy, the Dojlidy Brewery in Białystok and Lech Browary Wielkopolski in Poznań – will run from 2020 to 2029.

This deal is a significant commitment that helps us come closer to the Asahi ambition of becoming carbon neutral across the whole supply chain by 2050. It also lays the ground for Innogy to invest in a new onshore construction project that will support Poland’s transition towards renewable energy, thus enabling other Polish businesses and energy consumers to join us in the journey.

From 2020, Innogy’s Nowy Staw onshore wind farm close to Gdansk will supply 30 gigawatt-hours annually to Kompania Piwowarska, covering about 40% of our electricity needs in the country. From 2021, Nowy Staw will cover 100% of our electricity requirements in Poland through the planned expansion of the existing wind farm by 12 megawatts. From then on, Nowy Staw will supply up to 80 gigawatt-hours per year, covering 100% of our total consumption.