Antinuclear

Biggest buyers of renewable energy are not utilities, but giant corporations

Corporate America Is Buying More Clean Energy Than Power Utilities Are https://www.fastcoexist.com/3063266/corporate-america-is-buying-more-clean-energy-than-power-utilities   Want to get solar and wind power off the ground? It might be smarter to turn to Apple or Google rather than the power company. These days, the biggest buyers of renewable energy aren’t utilities. They’re corporations like Google, Walmart, and Owens Corning. Over the last year and a half, there’s been a surge of power purchases first by tech companies and more recently by more mainstream businesses, such as General Motors and Steelcase.

And, in some cases, companies are not only buying up power from a solar field or wind farm operator. They’re actually investing and running the plant themselves, or selling on power they don’t need. Ikea has invested in wind turbines in Texas and Illinois. And Apple has applied to sell on excess electricity as part of its $848 million California solar project (the new company would be called Apple Energy LLC).

Analysts say corporate players are increasingly driving decision-making in the large-scale energy market. “We’ve now reached the point where these companies that have shown leadership on renewables are doing that at a greater scale than utilities,” says Ian Kelly, manager of Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center. “It puts pressure on utilities to either offer renewable energy or see these companies go out and secure it directly themselves and leave utilities out of the picture.”

September 2, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized