Linde Signs Six PPAs, Nearly Tripling Renewable Power Purchases Since 2021

Linde has signed six new power purchase agreements to source renewable electricity across Spain, Greece, South Africa and India, together supplying approximately 0.63 terawatt-hours of renewable energy annually from newly developed wind and solar assets. The agreements extend a trajectory that has seen the industrial gases company increase its active renewable power purchasing 2.7 times compared to its 2021 baseline, from 2.8 to 7.6 terawatt-hours in 2025. Low-carbon power now accounts for around 50 percent of Linde's global electricity consumption.

 

Why Electricity Sourcing Matters for an Industrial Gases Company

 

Industrial gas production, particularly the separation and liquefaction processes central to Linde's business, is highly electricity-intensive, meaning the carbon intensity of the power a company like Linde purchases has an outsized effect on its overall emissions footprint compared with less energy-intensive industries. That is why the company frames renewable electricity procurement as central to its emissions reduction strategy rather than a peripheral sustainability initiative, since shifting the source of the electricity powering its plants directly reduces emissions without requiring changes to the underlying industrial processes themselves.

The near-tripling of active renewable power purchases since 2021 signals a deliberate shift in strategy rather than incremental progress. Active renewable power purchasing, securing electricity through direct agreements tied to specific new wind or solar projects, differs meaningfully from simply buying renewable energy certificates disconnected from actual power generation, since PPAs typically provide the financial certainty that allows new renewable projects to be built in the first place, directly adding clean generation capacity to the grid rather than merely reallocating existing renewable output on paper.

 

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What the New Geographic Spread Reveals

 

The six new agreements span Spain, Greece, South Africa and India, a geographic spread that reflects both mature and emerging renewable energy markets. Spain and Greece have well-established renewable project development ecosystems within the European Union's broader energy transition framework, while South Africa and India represent markets where renewable energy infrastructure is expanding rapidly but where grid electricity has historically carried a heavier reliance on coal, making corporate renewable procurement in those specific markets carry a larger relative emissions reduction benefit than equivalent agreements in already low-carbon grids.

Vice President of Sustainability Erin Catapano tied the agreements directly to Linde's target of reducing absolute emissions 35 percent by 2035, framing continued renewable power procurement as the mechanism accelerating progress toward that goal. An absolute emissions reduction target, rather than an intensity-based one measured per unit of output, means Linde has committed to cutting its total emissions regardless of how much its production volume grows, making the pace of renewable electricity procurement a direct lever on whether that absolute target remains achievable as the company's operations continue to expand.

 

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The Customer Avoidance Figure and What It Signals

 

Beyond its own operational emissions, Linde reported that it helped customers avoid 98 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025, more than double the greenhouse gases emitted across Linde's own global operations. That figure reflects the company's positioning within industrial decarbonisation more broadly: Linde's gases and technologies, including clean hydrogen production and carbon capture applications, are used by other industrial companies specifically to reduce their own emissions, meaning Linde's climate relevance extends well beyond its direct footprint into the emissions reductions it enables for customers across chemicals, energy, manufacturing and other sectors.

That customer-facing decarbonisation role is central to how Linde frames its broader sustainability positioning, presenting the company as an enabling partner for industrial decarbonisation across multiple sectors rather than solely managing its own emissions trajectory. The company points to inclusion in external sustainability benchmarks including the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices, the FTSE4Good Index Series and the S&P Sustainability Yearbook as third-party validation supporting that positioning. Whether Linde continues expanding active renewable procurement at a pace sufficient to hit its 2035 absolute emissions target as production volumes grow, and whether its customer-facing decarbonisation technologies scale fast enough to sustain the kind of emissions avoidance figures reported for 2025, will determine how completely this renewable sourcing strategy translates into the industrial decarbonisation role the company is positioning itself to play.

 

Source: Linde