Corporate demand is now a key driver of large-scale wind and solar growth, but utilities and their biggest customers have only begun to find innovative ways to meet that demand. At first, big corporate buyers went out to buy their own wind and solar projects. But that introduced complications and limitations, which led to partnerships with utilities that knew how to manage those challenges. The corporations and utilities are still refining the terms of those partnerships. Corporations accounted for more than 2,000 MW of the 5,496 MW of wind capacity contracted for in 2017 and grew to 9.6% of the total installed U.S. capacity . Corporate procurement of solar grew from 10% of 2016’s installed capacity to 16% in 2017 . Innovation to meet growing corporate demand began when customers with clean energy ambitions like Google , Apple and Amazon started contracting with independent power producers (IPPs) for off-site […]
