Companies have created a fully fledged lobby group to further the cause of clean energy
has little interest in fighting climate change. Not so its companies. Last year businesses tapped more than 8.5 gigawatts of clean energy in America, nearly triple the level of 2017, according to Bloomberg, an energyresearch firm. Although more than 150 big corporations around the world have set targets to buy all their power from renewable sources, America accounts for 63% of corporate purchases of clean gigawatts.
The reality is more complex. The simplest way for a company to source clean electricity is to blanket its property with solar panels. Walmart has been doing this since 2007, harvesting the sun’s rays from the vast roofs of its megastores. Such schemes generate only so much energy, however. Google’s electricity demand, chiefly from its ravenous data centres, is nearly that of Estonia. Companies must therefore buy their renewable power from third parties.
In a normal procurement process, companies would seek bids from a variety of suppliers. Electricity is different, particularly in places with a regulated, monopolistic supplier—which is true of many American states. Two-thirds of corporate purchases of renewable electricity in America are therefore virtual, in what amounts to a swap. A company buys energy for its operations as usual from a local utility.
If a company balks at a utility’s terms, abandoning the provider can be difficult if not impossible in a market with few alternatives. If a utility does lose a big corporate buyer, it may need to shift costs to its remaining customers. This is something regulators are understandably keen to avoid.Energy, but reckoned it could both lower costs and obtain more clean power if it purchased electricity elsewhere.Energy in 2016, but only after paying the utility $87m to do so.
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