Microsoft Signs Company’s Single Largest Renewable Energy Agreement

Microsoft signed the company’s single largest renewable energy portfolio energy purchase agreement this week. The deal for more than 500 megawatts (MW) of solar projects in the United States should help Microsoft close in on its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Under the agreement, national solar energy finance and development firm Sol Systems plans to finance, develop, and operate a portfolio of solar projects in the US. Sol Systems will then sell energy from those projects to Microsoft, according to the developer.

Prior to the new partnership, Microsoft reported that the company had procured approximately 1.9 gigawatts of renewable energy. Last year the tech giant made several renewable deals globally, including 125 MW from a wind farm in Ohio, 90 MW of offshore wind power in the Netherlands, and 230 megawatts for solar and wind energy projects under construction in Texas.

The partnership with Sol Systems also ties the purchase of renewable energy to environmental justice and equity in under-resourced communities, Microsoft’s chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa wrote in a corporate blog post. Both companies agreed to put at least $50 million toward community-led grants and investments supporting educational programs, job and career training, habitat restoration, and programs that facilitate energy efficiency as well as access to renewable energy.

Microsoft Reports Progress on Carbon Negative Goal

In January Microsoft announced plans to become carbon negative by 2030, and then remove all of the carbon from the environment that the company had emitted since its founding by 2050.

This week Joppa said the company launched a new coalition called Transform to Net Zero to “accelerate business action toward a net-zero carbon economy.” The other founding members are Maersk, Danone, Mercedes-Benz, Natura & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Unilever, and Wipro. Environmental Defense Fund is the founding NGO member and BSR will serve as secretariat, he added.

Additional steps:

• Creating a Microsoft Sustainability Calculator for cloud customers to gain transparency into their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
• Setting a goal to eliminate the company’s dependency on diesel fuel by 2030.
• Extending their internal carbon tax to every part of operations, including Scope 3.
• Updating the Supplier Code of Conduct so that suppliers will now calculate and report their Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions data.
• Issuing a request for proposal to source that carbon removal from a range of nature- and technology-based solutions that are net-negative and verified to a high degree of scientific integrity.
• Investing $50 million in Energy Impact Partners’ (EIP) global platform for innovation.

“We have been working hard to turn our commitments into action,” Joppa wrote.