11 April 2022

Telecommunication service provider A1 Bulgaria has signed a deal with domestic clean energy investment group Renalfa for solar energy, as well as operations and maintenance services.

The long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) will see a photovoltaic plant in south Bulgaria with a peak capacity of 33 MW set to supply A1 Bulgaria with 20 GWh of electricity per year for the next decade.

Renalfa will also provide the so-called sleeving service to A1 via its subsidiary Toki.bg. Sleeving is the process of transforming the pay-as-produced PV profile of the generation project into the consumption schedule of the telecom through the electricity market. This is the first such agreement on the Bulgarian market.

With a sleeved PPA, the buyer gets electricity through an intermediary which handles the transfer of both energy and money, bears the wholesale price change risk and is responsible for buying balancing power.

“Climate change is arguably the biggest challenge of the 21st century,” said Alexander Dimitrov, chairman of the management board and chief executive officer of A1 Bulgaria. “While digital technologies can support sustainable development, the unprecedented global data usage during the Covid-19 pandemic has caused our industry to consume more energy than ever before. He said that as part of A1 Telekom Austria Group, the company is aware of its responsibility towards the environment and has set an ambitious environmental target: reducing CO2 emissions to net zero by 2030. “This will be achieved by decreasing our own carbon footprint and gradually switching to energy from renewable sources,” Dimitrov concluded.

A1 Bulgaria offers mobile and fixed services, high-speed broadband internet, satellite TV, own interactive TV platform, sports channels, financial services, ICT, cloud, and IoT solutions to more than 4.8 million customers.