What Corporation Buys The Most On Solar? Bloomberg Has The Stats

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Corporations are driving clean energy adoption globally, and they have procured more than ever before so far in 2018 – at least according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Through July, global corporations have already shattered the 2017 full-year record by more than 2 GW through July, having already purchased 7.2 GW through July vs 5.4 GW in all of 2017. It’s being driven by sustainability plans and the incentives to build clean energy projects.

And solar is making up an ever-increasing portion of the purchases, thanks to plummeting PV prices – though wind still makes up the majority of purchases globally.

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Corporate PPAs are driving the growth, particularly in the United States, BNEF reports:

As a result, we’re seeing corporations locking into fixed, long-term clean energy contracts, hedging against volatile prices in the wholesale market. This is known as the virtual PPA model, and remains the most common corporate procurement mechanism.In the U.S., companies have grown more comfortable with the virtual PPA model, serving as the offtaker on several projects, but smaller companies are also increasingly pooling their electricity demand together to access the economies of scale achieved through larger solar and wind projects, known as aggregation.

BNEF reports the top five companies with solar installations – are Facebook, Microsoft, Walmart, MGM Resorts and Google. The company expects the growth to continue because companies have already committed to purchasing a certain amount of clean energy.

Bloomberg NEF forecasts that the current 140 signatories of the RE100 (a pledge to offset 100% of electricity demand with renewables) will need to purchase an additional 197 TWh of clean energy in 2030 to reach their targets. Were this shortfall to be met with long-term contracts for new solar and wind projects, it would lead to an additional 100GW of build – for context, this is slightly larger than California’s entire electricity grid today.

In other words, the future of clean energy continues to be bright on a global level – and solar continues to increase its hold on the international clean-energy market. It’s nice to see something we all feel instinctually borne out by research and statistics from BNEF.