Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has announced a 10-year virtual power purchasing agreement (VPPA) with renewable energy developer, X-ELIO. The agreement aims to increase the access to renewable electricity across the healthcare and pharmaceutical supply chains. Expected to be operational in early 2026, the project will include a cohort of three partners across both sectors.

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Combining Thermo Fisher’s Lorca solar and the Serbal solar project, the company will be able to match all of its European sites’ electricity needs with renewable energy. Additionally, the company will move closer to achieving its goal of 80% global renewable electricity by 2030. Thermo Fisher’s 73 MW portion of the Lorca solar project will generate around 150,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity annually. This is the equivalent to powering around 40,500 European homes for a year.
“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 at 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.”
Thermo Fisher and its value chain partners (GSK, Gilead Sciences, and Haleon) will be able to simultaneously reduce its Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions through the aggregated share of Lorca solar. Scope 2 emission include purchased electricity to power a company’s facilities, while Scope 3 includes emissions from value chain partners.
What is the Energize initiative?
Managed by Schneider Electric and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, the Energize initiative is a collaborative partnership between a selection of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and their suppliers. The initiative outlines the priorities of increasing access to renewable electricity, driving supply chain decarbonisation, and speeding up action across the sector.
Thermo Fisher joined the initiative in 2021 as a way to support its own renewable electricity adoption strategy. The company was elected to lead the cohort for the Lorca solar VPPA.
John Powers, Vice President, Global Renewables at Schneider Electric, stated, “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. The Energize program aims to drive supply chain decarbonisation across the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries while serving as a playbook for other sectors as they look to power their operations with renewable energy.”
Having established its global renewable electricity commitment in 2023, Thermo Fisher has aligned itself with the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Health Systems Task Force joint supplier standards. Additionally, the company has pledged to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 50% by 2030, as well as to powers its US facilities with 100% renewable electricity by 2026.