(Image: The BRC Deal Tracker as of December 13, 2018. Credit: Rocky Mountain Institute)Wind and solar corporate energy deals announced in 2018 total 6.33 gigawatts to date, setting a new single-year record, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center. The BRC released a quarterly update to their ongoing deal tracker today.
Compared to the previous record year of 2015, the cumulative deal capacity and the number of new deals has practically doubled over the past three years, as the updated BRC Deal Tracker shows. In 2013, when the center began tracking deals, there were five total equaling 0.32 GW. This year there were 73 deals.
The center noted that in 2018 there were 40 individual buyers and 25 first-time buyers. The top five companies with the largest cumulative announced capacity in 2018 are:
“Smaller deal examples were seen by other Fortune 500 companies such as Kohler’s 15-year 100-MW virtual power purchase agreement with Enel Green Power NA and JM Smucker’s 60-GW PPA with Lincoln Clean Energy (now Orsted),” the BRC said. “Although barriers remain such that each of these deals may take year-long efforts to plan, member buyers have told the BRC they are feeling more comfortable making these kinds of commitments because of the prior year’s track record.”
In addition, the BRC observed that the market of buyers is becoming more diverse every year, both in terms of the organization sizes and also in the demand. The percentage of unique buyers in the space is evenly distributed, with an extra push this year from telecoms and ramped-up participation from the apparel sector, the center says.
“We are impressed with the growth and expansion in the corporate renewables marketplace, from a broadening sector diversity, and increasingly supportive policy conditions, to utilities and developers rising to meet customer demand and reducing their own generation emissions,” said Miranda Ballentine, CEO of the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA). “At this pace, we anticipate a fourfold increase in corporate renewables procurement by 2025.”
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