Renewable Energy Articles | Page 308

Corporations bought a record amount of clean energy through PPAs, in 2018, shattering the previous record set in 2017, according to this column from BloombergNEF. Moving forward even at this accelerated rate, will RE100 companies meet their 2030 targets?

Ten years of the world’s biggest purchasers – including Bank of America, Dell, Kellogg Company, Unilever and Walmart – requesting transparency from their suppliers has triggered a step-change in environmental action, leading to 633 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions reductions and collective cost savings of  $19.3 billion reported by over 5,500 suppliers in 2018.

Illinois achieved the lead position on the U.S. Green Building Council’s 2018 list of Top 10 States for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The ranking of states based on the number of LEED-certified square feet per person placed Massachusetts in second place

Penn State announced the development of 70 megawatts of large-scale offsite solar to support the University's Strategic Plan, which cites stewardship of the planet's resources as a key priority. The project to install large-scale solar arrays will provide 25% of Penn State's state-wide electricity requirements over a 25-year term.

Kingston Technology will add a 1.5 MW solar power and battery storage construction project at its corporate headquarters in Fountain Valley, Calif.

Tech giants Facebook, Google, and Amazon are leading the charge for corporate procurement of renewables within the U.S., combining for market share of just over a third (35.1%). After announcing 1.5 GW of procurement in 2018, Facebook is the largest

Middlebury College announced a commitment to power its core Vermont campus with 100% renewable energy by 2028. The College also set ambitious goals to reduce energy consumption, to phase out direct fossil-fuel investments in its endowment, and to create new educational programs and opportunities that will help empower future generations of environmental leaders.

With the addition of New Mexico and Illinois, the U.S. Climate Alliance, a national coalition of states committed to reducing GHG emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, now has a total of 19 members.

Hundreds of engineers, electricians, and construction workers are building two new, energy-efficient Google data center campuses in the Southeastern U.S.—one in Tennessee and another in northern Alabama. As this blog post from Google notes, they are not stopping there.

Corporations purchased 13.4 gigawatts (GW) of clean power through PPAs in 2018, more than double the 6.1GWs recording in 2017. The PPAs were signed by 121 corporations in 21 different countries, positioning corporates alongside utilities as the biggest buyers of clean energy globally.