Corporations bought a record amount of renewable energy in 2021 amid mounting investor pressure to cut carbon emissions, research firm BloombergNEF, or BNEF, said Jan. 31.
Power producers sold 31.1 GW of green energy to companies outside of the electric industry in 2021, a 24% increase from the previous record set in 2020, BNEF said.
The deals accounted for more than 10% of the renewable energy capacity added globally in 2021, demonstrating the impact of corporate sustainability pledges on the energy sector, according to BNEF.
Large technology companies were the top buyers. Amazon.com Inc., the leading purchaser, signed 44 off-site power purchase agreements totaling 6.21 GW of capacity. Microsoft Corp. and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. bought 6.15 GW and 2.2 GW, respectively.
"The clean energy portfolios of big tech companies now rival those of the world's biggest utilities," Helen Dewhurst, a senior associate at BNEF, said in a news release. "Big tech faces mounting pressure from investors to decarbonize, and this is reflected in the steep increase in clean energy volumes purchased."
Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Google LLC, which had been a leading buyer, is pursuing new strategies to procure around-the-clock, carbon-free electricity.
Among power producers, AES Corp. was the top provider of green power purchase agreements in 2021. In addition to demanding more renewable energy, companies outside of the power sector are increasingly turning to AES and other producers to manage their electricity usage and meet sustainability targets.
NextEra Energy Resources LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc., said Jan. 20 that it is using a software system to help JP Morgan Chase match power demand to available green-energy resources.
"As there's been a lot of rotation of capital into [environmental, social and governance] funds, it's certainly getting investor attention and putting an impetus on companies to become sustainable," John Ketchum, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, said on an earnings call Jan. 25. "And so one of the things that we've spent a lot of time on over the last couple of years is our customer base and how do we market to a different customer base."
"These are people that are selling candy bars and bottles of water and things of that nature. They're not in our business," said Ketchum, who will take over as NextEra Energy's CEO in March. "They need the expertise as to how they think about that addition [of carbon-free power] ... within their existing energy needs."