Etem Gestamp secures cross-border wind PPA with Rezolv Energy

Etem Gestamp, an aluminium extrusion and processing company for the automotive industry, has signed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with Actis-backed independent power producer Rezolv Energy for 461MW of wind power.

The 10-year agreement will provide Etem Gestamp with power from the VIFOR wind farm, which is about to come online in Buzău County, Romania.

VIFOR, situated near the Carpathian Mountains where wind yields are high, will generate enough clean energy to power more than 270,000 homes annually.

This is the third PPA for Bulgarian-based Etem Gestamp, a joint venture between Viohalco Group and Spain’s Gestamp Group. In 2022, the company signed a 10-year solar PPA, marking the first PPA in Bulgaria in which an industrial consumer of electricity agreed to buy all of the green electricity produced by a solar plant.

Etem Gestamp will use this new wind VPPA to complement this supply of solar power and ensure a balanced electricity consumption profile.

This agreement reinforces Etem Gestamp’s mission to help decarbonise the greater automotive supply chain, as well as its own industrial processes.

It’s also looking to become more energy efficient and utilise more renewable energy sources to supply electricity. The company is aiming to achieve around 70% of its energy mix to come from renewable sources by 2027.

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Nikolay Stoynov, Business Services Director at Etem Gestamp, commented in a statement: “This agreement represents an important milestone in Etem Gestamp’s decarbonisation journey…The VPPA enables us to secure price stability while significantly reducing the carbon footprint of our operations in Bulgaria.”

The agreement is Rezolv Energy’s first PPA of 2026, seventh PPA in Romania and Bulgaria, and the second with a company from the automotive sector.

According to Alastair Hammond, CEO of Rezolv Energy, agreements such as this are an important step to increase access to wind power in Bulgaria: “With wind capacity still limited in Bulgaria, the cross-border VPPA model provides a way for Bulgarian companies to access wind power from other countries in Southeastern Europe and help accelerate the energy transition in the region. Etem Gestamp has shown the way for other commercial and industrial energy buyers in Bulgaria.”

Jaroslava Korpanec, Head of Central and Eastern Europe, Infrastructure at Actis, added that partnerships such as this ultimately boost the region’s economic resilience, stating: “This partnership reflects the increasing alignment between industrial competitiveness and clean energy investment in Southeastern Europe…supporting both decarbonisation and economic resilience in the region.”

Gestamp in Spain

This week, Spanish-headquartered Gestamp also signed a 10-year PPA with Iberdrola for 34MW of installed capacity.

The agreement will secure the supply of 660,000MWh of electricity to various European plants of the multinational company. The power will comprise of 80% wind and 20% solar.

Besides helping to decarbonise the supply chain, the PPA allows Gestamp to secure renewable energy at a fixed price, providing much-needed long-term visibility of future costs.

The newly signed PPA joins others already signed by Gestamp, which have allowed the company to cover 100% of its production activities in Spain and Brazil with renewable energy sources.

Javier Imaz, Chief Purchasing Officer of Gestamp, stated: “This agreement marks a very important milestone for the company, as it represents a further step in our efforts to implement more sustainable production processes that prioritise electrification, energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources. All of this forms part of Gestamp’s ambitious sustainability strategy, which seeks, among other objectives, to continue contributing to the decarbonisation of the automotive industry’s supply chain.”

In Spain’s automotive sector, Iberdrola has formalised agreements in 2026—each with a 10-year term—that cover 50MW of installed capacity and the supply of one million MWh of 100% renewable energy.

David Martínez, Director of the Retail Business at Iberdrola España, said: “PPAs are a key tool to guarantee long-term energy supply for industrial companies and to drive the electrification of the economy.”

The importance of renewable PPAs 

Increasingly, the automotive industry in Europe is turning to renewable PPAs as a means to drive decarbonisation of the supply chain, as well as ensure stable power prices in the long term.

According to Rezolv Energy, the sector showed a 50% average annual growth in PPA adoption between 2019 and 2022.

In the current climate of price instability and geopolitical tensions, it’s more important than ever to ensure industries such as the automotive industry remain as competitive as possible.

This sentiment was emphasised in a recent post on X by IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera, who pointed to renewables as key to securing that competitive edge: “Renewables are the best insurance for more energy security, resilience and competitiveness.”