McDonald’s supersizes renewables order from Poland’s Tauron

Polish energy company Tauron and McDonald’s have signed power purchase agreements that will see Tauron deliver up to 100GWh of hydropower annually by 2030.

The energy will be generated at four hydropower plants and will provide power to restaurants directly connected to the distribution network, as well as certain suppliers.

According to Tauron, the structure of the agreements is an improvement upon previous wind and solar PPAs with McDonald’s. McDonald's will contract the energy on a pay-as-produced basis for a five-year period.

It’s also one of the first agreements on the market to simultaneously incorporate three types of renewable energy sources, states Tauron.

As part of the agreements, Tauron's role will be to aggregate all concluded PPAs, enable energy contracting based on market mechanisms using products listed on the Polish Power Exchange, and supply energy to McDonald's restaurants.

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Krzysztof Czajka, Vice President of the Management Board of TAURON Sprzedaż, commented in a statement: " We can provide companies with flexible energy purchasing solutions tailored to their individual business needs. The PPA agreement we concluded with the McDonald's restaurant chain is a prime example".

Jakub Woropajew, Managing Manager of Maximised Collective Deals, responsible for electricity management for the McDonald's system in Poland added that the brand aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50.4% by 2030 compared to 2018. The pace at which new stores are opening in the country, approximately 40 locations per year, means agreements such as this are critical.

Says Woropajew: “We already operate over 600 McDonald's locations in Poland, together with our franchisees…Therefore, our collaboration with the Tauron Group and the expansion of our energy mix to include hydropower is another important step in McDonald's energy transformation".

Learn more about Poland's energy transition.