Energize Weekly, May 2, 2018
Corporate renewable energy purchases reached 2.78 gigawatts (GW) in 2017, on 28 deals, second only to 2015’s 3.2 GW, according to Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center.
The market continues to look strong with 19 deals for 1.96 GW already signed in 2018, according to the center’s State of the Market report.
The largest purchasers were Google with four deals, Apple with three contracts, and Facebook, Kimberly-Clark and General Motors each with two deals. Other significant buyers were T-Mobile, AB InBev, Target and General Mills.
Google, the largest corporate buyer of renewable power, purchased about 500 megawatts in 2017. The company has commitments for 2.6 GW of wind and solar energy, according to the company.
The biggest purchasers in 2018 to date are AT&T, Microsoft and Facebook, with Google, Johnson & Johnson, Target, Nike and Walmart having made small purchases of renewables so far this year.
The center’s statistics are based on publicly announced contracted capacity by companies through purchase power agreements (PPAs) and does not count onsite generation, such as rooftop photovoltaic solar, or direct agreements with operating plants.
New power purchase deals were made in 13 states led by Oklahoma with five and Texas with 4. The first two Oregon PPAs were signed in 2017, according to the report. In all, there are corporate agreements for renewable power in 24 states.
Information technology companies were the early adopters for renewable PPAs, accounting for 69 percent of the 421 megawatts of deals in 2013, with the health care sector taking the remaining megawatts.
By 2017, the corporate renewable purchasers were much more diverse. Information technology remained the largest sector with 48 percent of the nearly 2,775 megawatts purchased. Consumer staples were second with 22 percent, followed by consumer discretionary (9 percent), financials (8 percent) and telecommunications at 6 percent.
Other sectors where companies signed PPAs included industrial, materials and health care.
In 2013, wind power PPAs were 93 percent of the market and solar 7 percent. The following year, wind was 99 percent of the market.
Solar, however, has captured 20 percent to 25 percent the market each year since 2015. In 2017, solar had a 32 percent share of the market.
There were 19 renewable energy developers signing PPAs with corporate customers in 2017. Among the biggest developers were Tradewind Energy, EDF Renewable Energy, Enel, Techren Solar, Avangrid and NextEra.
