New figures have claimed that Amazon, Meta and Google-owned Alphabet are the largest corporate investors in the US wind and solar power space.
a Report (Opens in a new tab) From the American Clean Energy Association (ACPA), a pressure group, which also revealed that while the tech industry is (perhaps understandably) setting an example for others in buying 48% of all clean energy, others are following that example.
The amount of clean energy purchased by companies across industries such as energy, telecommunications, and food and beverage has increased at a rate of 73% annually over the past decade, with investments spread across 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Clean energy optimism
Perhaps most surprisingly, 35% of the contracted capacity purchased by the companies came from Texas, a state known for its “oil boom” in the early 20th century.
These details in the ACPA report are the second sign that the US oil industry may falter in 2023, after business today (Opens in a new tab) I recently reported that industry data showed signs of declining demand for fossil fuels nationwide.
Corporate America seems to be coming to terms with the fact that clean energy is a necessity, albeit a long-term investment. 77.4 gigawatts has been contracted, across more than 300 companies, so far, enough to power 1,000 data centers, or 18 million homes.
Despite this amazing investment, more than half of this capacity is not yet operational. However, an ACPA spokesperson said CNBC It expects to do so “in the next three years”.
Commitments like these are welcome. However, as much as we might like to entrust the morals to giant corporations like Amazon, Meta or Google, all of which have recently been implicated in Lay offAnd Data misuseAnd Advertising revenue monopoly Controversy, the primary impulse for big tech is to make switching less cumbersome.
The ACPA report claims that the price of investing in clean energy finally looks low enough for companies to take decisive action.
Solar and wind have seen cost reductions of 71% and 47%, respectively, over the past decade, and despite increased PPA costs in 2022, US companies are still buying 20 gigawatts of clean energy by the end of the year,4 gigawatts more than in any other year.
Although the reason for the US push for clean energy is not very noble, there is still some solace in the fact that efforts across industry to transition to renewables will be better for the planet in the long run.
via CNBC (Opens in a new tab)