French medical imaging company Guerbet has launched a new 2.4MW solar farm at its site in Damastown in Dublin, which it says will provide 18 per cent of its electricity each year.
Guerbet develops and manufactures contrast media, to improve the visibility of internal organs, blood vessels, and tissues during medical imaging procedures.
The Dublin site manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for one of Guerbet’s key injectable contrast media agents, and currently employs more than 130 workers.
In 2022, Guerbet signed a contract with Waterford-based renewable energy company Enerpower powered by Greenvolt (Enerpower), for the construction of the solar farm at its Damastown site.
The solar farm was constructed and financed by Enerpower, and is built on 2.47 hectares of land adjacent to the Damastown site owned by Guerbet. It will provide 2 million kWh/a of electricity to Guerbet, the equivalent to the electricity consumption of 500 households.
The project will deliver 18 per cent of the Dublin site’s electrical power on an annualised basis, with potential to power the entire plant without grid support during daylight hours in peak summer months.
As part of a corporate power purchase agreement, Guerbet has guaranteed to purchase the solar PV electrical power produced by the solar farm for a period of 20 years. At the end of this agreement, ownership of the solar farm will revert from Enerpower to Guerbet.
“It’s a very attractive proposition for a company like us, where we don’t have to invest up front in it, but we get the win over time,” said David Forde, site lead at Guerbet Dublin.
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The Damastown site is the first of Guerbet’s global network to develop a solar farm, and Mr Forde said the group is now assessing options as to how other sites might follow Dublin’s example.
“Each geography is different in terms of the economics of it, and we happened to have a significant piece of land adjacent to the site which was available for it, but certainly this has shown a pathway that the organisation can try to replicate, or do some variation on,” he said.
David Hale, chief executive of Guerbet Group, said that the group has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 27.5 per cent for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and 13.5 per cent for Scope 3 emissions by 2032.
“Our partnership with Enerpower is a great example of a relationship that will help us achieve those objectives,” he said.
The solar farm launch comes as Guerbet celebrates 30 years of operation in Ireland. The Dublin site first began production in 1994.
Guerbet is listed on Euronext Paris and generated €785 million in revenue last year. The Group’s global footprint spans across five continents with 2,830 employees worldwide.
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