According to Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, corporate renewable energy procurement set a new single-year record for new capacity of announced wind and solar deals in 2018.
The Center reports that as of mid-December 2018, publicly announced corporate procurements of renewable energy reached 6.43 gigawatts. Procurement approaches counted toward this total include power purchase agreements, green power purchases, green tariffs, and outright project ownership in the United States.
Facebook, AT&T, Walmart, ExxonMobil and Microsoft had the five highest total volumes of newly announced deals; Facebook alone added 1,849.5 megawatts of new renewable procurement.
The Center notes that the U.S. renewables market has nearly doubled its annual total of corporate clean energy off-site deal volume since its prior highpoint in 2015. Also noteworthy is a near-doubling of the number of new entrants into the procurement market, including AT&T which completed deals for 820 megawatts of renewable power in 2018.
According to the Center's Deal Tracker, the total cumulative corporate procurement of renewable energy in the U.S. since 2013 now exceeds 15 gigawatts.
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Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Google invests in solar energy projects
Monday, November 18, 2013
Google has announced an investment in six solar photovoltaic projects to its portfolio. The projects, located in California and Arizona, have a combined electric generating capacity of 106 megawatts. This deal illustrates the trend of renewable energy investments by data centers and other tech companies.
The projects are under development by Recurrent Energy. Five are located in Southern California, while the sixth is in Arizona. Google and investment firm KKR invested $400 million in the projects; Google's share is reportedly $80 million. The partners will sell the power produced by the facilities to local utilities including Southern California Edison.
Google announced that this represents its fourteenth investment in renewable energy since 2011. In 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted market-based rate authority to Google subsidiary Google Energy LLC, enabling it to sell power at wholesale. Google has since entered into long-term agreements to purchase power from wind farms and other renewable generators.
Other tech companies are pursuing similar strategies. Earlier this month Microsoft announced a deal to purchase energy produced by a Texas wind farm for its data center in San Antonio. In September, eBay received market-based rate authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, allowing it to sell surplus power from its generators to the grid.
For consumers like Google with significant demand for power, developing on-site electric generation or entering into a long-term power purchase agreement can be cost-effective, either by reducing the cost of energy or by reducing its exposure to price volatility. Investments in renewable energy can also position companies for improved sustainability and "green" their public images. For these reasons, the trend of tech company investment in renewable energy infrastructure will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
The projects are under development by Recurrent Energy. Five are located in Southern California, while the sixth is in Arizona. Google and investment firm KKR invested $400 million in the projects; Google's share is reportedly $80 million. The partners will sell the power produced by the facilities to local utilities including Southern California Edison.
Google announced that this represents its fourteenth investment in renewable energy since 2011. In 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted market-based rate authority to Google subsidiary Google Energy LLC, enabling it to sell power at wholesale. Google has since entered into long-term agreements to purchase power from wind farms and other renewable generators.
Other tech companies are pursuing similar strategies. Earlier this month Microsoft announced a deal to purchase energy produced by a Texas wind farm for its data center in San Antonio. In September, eBay received market-based rate authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, allowing it to sell surplus power from its generators to the grid.
For consumers like Google with significant demand for power, developing on-site electric generation or entering into a long-term power purchase agreement can be cost-effective, either by reducing the cost of energy or by reducing its exposure to price volatility. Investments in renewable energy can also position companies for improved sustainability and "green" their public images. For these reasons, the trend of tech company investment in renewable energy infrastructure will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
Wind to power Microsoft's Texas data center
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Microsoft has agreed to purchase energy produced by a Texas wind farm to power its data center in San Antonio. The announcement, posted on the official blog of Microsoft's Sustainability Development Team, describes a 20-year power purchase agreement with RES Americas under which Microsoft will purchase all of the output of the 110 megawatt Keechi Wind project located about 280 miles north.
The power purchase agreement fits with Microsoft's stated commitment to carbon neutrality. Since 2012, Microsoft has imposed an internal fee on the use of carbon-based forms of energy; Microsoft uses that fee to make investments in alternative or carbon-neutral energy, such as this power purchase agreement.
The Keechi project will be owned and operated by RES Americas, a subsidiary of British company RES Ltd. RES Americas currently operates over 600 MW of renewable energy projects, and has a renewable energy construction portfolio that exceeds 6,500 MW and 64 projects, as well as 534 miles of transmission lines. Its Keechi project is expected to cost $200 million, and will feature 55 turbines expected to produce 430,000 megawatt hours of energy per year. (To put this figure in context, it could power up to 45,000 homes, or cover between 5 and 10 percent of Microsoft's total electricity consumption.) Construction is expected to begin in 2014, with the project going operational by June 2015.
Microsoft is not alone in promoting its use of renewable or alternative energy to power its data centers. In 2012 Google entered into an agreement to purchase the output of a wind farm in Oklahoma to power its Pryor data center. Apple's new data center in Maiden, North Carolina is powered in part by a solar photovoltaic array and a biogas-fed fuel cell. eBay has proposed siting a 6 megawatt natural gas-fired fuel cell at its Utah data center. Whether the data center is powered by on-site distributed generation or buys power from a designated off-site renewable resource, the trend is toward promoting cleaner, greener computing through these arrangements. These choices may help the companies with cost control and power reliability as well as public relations.
Will large consumers of electricity continue to invest in alternative or renewable electric generation? If so, will they favor arms-length power purchase agreements with developers of remote projects, or will they rely more heavily on on-campus development of distributed generation? Will this trend spread beyond the big names so far - Microsoft, Apple, Google, and eBay - to the point where smaller or less tech-oriented companies develop or do similar projects and deals?
The power purchase agreement fits with Microsoft's stated commitment to carbon neutrality. Since 2012, Microsoft has imposed an internal fee on the use of carbon-based forms of energy; Microsoft uses that fee to make investments in alternative or carbon-neutral energy, such as this power purchase agreement.
The Keechi project will be owned and operated by RES Americas, a subsidiary of British company RES Ltd. RES Americas currently operates over 600 MW of renewable energy projects, and has a renewable energy construction portfolio that exceeds 6,500 MW and 64 projects, as well as 534 miles of transmission lines. Its Keechi project is expected to cost $200 million, and will feature 55 turbines expected to produce 430,000 megawatt hours of energy per year. (To put this figure in context, it could power up to 45,000 homes, or cover between 5 and 10 percent of Microsoft's total electricity consumption.) Construction is expected to begin in 2014, with the project going operational by June 2015.
Microsoft is not alone in promoting its use of renewable or alternative energy to power its data centers. In 2012 Google entered into an agreement to purchase the output of a wind farm in Oklahoma to power its Pryor data center. Apple's new data center in Maiden, North Carolina is powered in part by a solar photovoltaic array and a biogas-fed fuel cell. eBay has proposed siting a 6 megawatt natural gas-fired fuel cell at its Utah data center. Whether the data center is powered by on-site distributed generation or buys power from a designated off-site renewable resource, the trend is toward promoting cleaner, greener computing through these arrangements. These choices may help the companies with cost control and power reliability as well as public relations.
Will large consumers of electricity continue to invest in alternative or renewable electric generation? If so, will they favor arms-length power purchase agreements with developers of remote projects, or will they rely more heavily on on-campus development of distributed generation? Will this trend spread beyond the big names so far - Microsoft, Apple, Google, and eBay - to the point where smaller or less tech-oriented companies develop or do similar projects and deals?
Googa 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy in Texas that
will be funded in part by proceeds from Microsoft’s carbon fee - See
more at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft-green/archive/2013/11/04/microsoft-signing-long-term-deal-to-buy-wind-energy-in-texas.aspx#sthash.4l62oNbo.dpuf
a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy in Texas that
will be funded in part by proceeds from Microsoft’s carbon fee - See
more at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft-green/archive/2013/11/04/microsoft-signing-long-term-deal-to-buy-wind-energy-in-texas.aspx#sthash.4l62oNbo.dpuf
a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy in Texas that
will be funded in part by proceeds from Microsoft’s carbon fee - See
more at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft-green/archive/2013/11/04/microsoft-signing-long-term-deal-to-buy-wind-energy-in-texas.aspx#sthash.4l62oNbo.dpuf
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