Corporate PPAs - Are UK Businesses Ready to Act?

Authored by James Milne, Chief Commercial Officer

Corporate PPAs - Are UK Businesses Ready to Act?

The UK government's consultation on Corporate Power Purchase Agreements is a signal businesses shouldn't ignore. Here's why CPPAs are one of the most powerful tools available to energy buyers, and what it takes to get them right.

DESNZ’ recent consultation on Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs) is a welcome signal that Whitehall recognises the strategic role these contracts must play in delivering Clean Power 2030. But beyond the policy debate, this consultation is a timely prompt for every business that buys energy: the CPPA market is maturing fast, the commercial case is compelling, and the window to secure strong long-term positions is open now.

Why CPPAs Deserve a Place in the Boardroom

For most UK businesses, energy is a material cost and a growing reputational risk. Wholesale price volatility since 2021 has demonstrated what reliance on short-term supply contracts really means in practice. At the same time, Scope 2 emissions commitments are raising the bar on what counts as credible renewable procurement.

CPPAs address both challenges in a single structure. They are long-term contracts, typically ten to fifteen years, between a corporate buyer and a renewable generator, locking in fixed or structured pricing and providing a direct, auditable link to a named renewable source. The core benefits are clear: long-term price certainty that standard supply contracts simply can't match; a credible and verifiable decarbonisation claim, especially valuable as GHG Protocol standards evolve to reward closer matching of consumption to generation; and, where private wire infrastructure is involved, genuine supply resilience and reduced grid dependency.

What the Government Consultation Gets Right

The consultation reflects a recognition that CPPAs must become a mainstream procurement route, not a niche product for large corporates with specialist teams. There are several areas where targeted Government action could shift the market.

• Sleeving and backup supply remain major off-site CPPA barriers, with limited availability and high pricing often derailing viable deals. More transparency and standardisation would reduce friction.
• Introduce a targeted CPPA competitiveness discount on selected non-wholesale charges for CPPAs that support new-build, repowering, or life-extension projects, with clear eligibility criteria to ensure support drives investment.
• Credit constraints limit the mid-market, as many businesses cannot meet the requirements of long-tenor CPPAs. Targeted credit enhancement could widen access. The EU’s 2025 “Lending Envelope” provides counter-guarantees to banks and insurers underwriting CPPA risks, and an organisation like Great British Energy could do the same
• Policy should support CPPAs for existing renewable assets as well as new-build, especially as legacy schemes such as the Renewables Obligation begin to fall away from March 2027.

Complexity Requires the Right Partner

CPPAs are not simple products. Negotiating a fifteen-year contract requires commercial expertise, robust risk management, and strong governance on both sides. The PPA market is complex; deals collapse at planning, at financing, or because the counterparty lacks the operational track record to execute. Buyers can invest significant internal resources in procurement processes that go nowhere.

At Infinis, our commercial approach is built around eliminating that delivery risk. Our portfolio spans operational and development-stage assets across landfill gas, solar, and battery storage, meaning we can move at pace without depending on planning permissions or grid connections that don't yet exist. Our in-house engineering and EPC relationships mean we construct what we sell, and our backing from 3i Infrastructure plc provides the balance sheet stability that long-tenor contracts require.

Our recent construction of two solar projects in Lincolnshire and Kent to supply long-term renewable power to Arla Foods is proof: a credible renewable source, a fixed-price long-term supply structure, and a generator that delivered on time.

The Time to Act Is Now

By combining landfill gas, solar and battery storage, we can offer corporate buyers a genuinely diverse, location-specific renewable supply, and a credible pathway towards 24/7 renewable power, matched to demand rather than averaged across it. That's increasingly what sophisticated buyers are asking for, and it's where the market is heading.

The government consultation will run its course, and reforms will follow. But the economics of CPPAs are compelling today, the renewable pipeline is deep, and the businesses that move now have the chance to get ahead, tailor CPPAs to their needs from a choice of projects and deliver the most value and strongest sustainability credentials. The question is whether your organisation has the right partner to navigate the complexity and deliver.

Explore what a CPPA with Infinis could mean for your business

Email: Commercial@infinis.com  |  Website: infinis.com  |  LinkedIn: Infinis