Royal Caribbean Cruises has signed a 12-year agreement with US wholesale energy provider Southern Power that will enable it to offset greenhouse gas emissions by retiring carbon credits generated by a future 200MW wind farm in the state of Kansas.

Financial terms of the deal were not made public.

The Reading Wind Facility, due online in second quarter 2020, will generate about 760,000MWh per year of clean electric power. This translates to a 10-12% offset of the Miami-based cruise line’s annual CO2 emissions starting that year.

The agreement with Royal Caribbean provides Southern Power with the economic basis to construct the project, its first to be validated as a carbon offset project under the Verified Carbon Standard.

The VCS programme is the most widely used global voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction mechanism.

When Reading operates, it will be issued tradable greenhouse gas credits called Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) that can be sold on the open market and retired by Royal Caribbean to offset its own emissions.

The VCS Standard requires all VCS projects to be subject to independent auditing, an emission reduction quantification methodology specific to a wind farm and a registry system that tracks the generation, retirement and cancellation of all VCUs.

"We are constantly looking for new ways to reduce our environmental footprint, both in the short and long term, and thanks to our partnership with Southern Power this is the latest step in our journey," said Richard D. Fain, chief executive of Royal Caribbean Cruises

Reading qualifies for the full production tax credit value with construction led by RES Americas. Siemens Gamesa will supply 62 turbines.

Wind

Royal Caribbean CO2 offset enables 200MW US wind farm