Corporate investments in clean energy exploded!

Corporations bought a record amount of clean energy through power purchase agreements, or PPAs, in 2018, published in the Corporate Energy Market Outlook report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF. The new record smashing the previous one set the year before.

Around 13.4 Gigawatt of clean energy contracts were signed by 121 corporations across 21 countries in 2018. This was up from 6.1 GW in 2017 and positions companies next to utilities as the biggest buyers of clean energy globally.

Jonas Rooze, head of corporate sustainability for BNEF, said: “Corporations have signed contracts to purchase over 32GW of clean power since 2008, an amount comparable to the generation capacity of the Netherlands, with 86% of this activity coming since 2015 and more than 40% in 2018 alone.”

The healthiest signal of continued growth in the global corporate procurement space is the growing alliance of companies establishing clean energy and sustainability commitments. One such campaign, known as the RE100 – consisting of nearly 160 signatories at the end of 2018 that have established 100% renewable electricity targets – has companies domiciled in 23 different markets. Cumulatively, these companies consumed an estimated 189TWh of electricity in 2017, equivalent to Egypt’s electricity consumption.

BNEF estimates these companies will need to purchase an additional 190TWh of clean electricity in 2030 to meet their RE100 targets. 

Read the whole article at BloombergNEF