According to a report by the American Clean Power Association, technology companies, including Amazon, Facebook’s parent company Meta, and Google’s parent company Alphabet, are leading the way in corporate purchases of wind and solar energy.
Amazon has contracted 12.4 GW of clean energy, Meta 8.7 GW, and Google 6.2 GW as of September 2022. The technology sector is ahead of other industries in buying clean power, but overall procurement of wind and solar energy by companies has been increasing, with an average annual increase of 73% from 2012 to 2022. The total amount of clean energy purchased by companies passed 1 GW in 2015, 8 GW in 2018, and reached nearly 20 GW in 2021.
The shift towards clean energy is driven not only by a desire to combat climate change, but also by the decreasing cost of clean power. According to a report, the cost of clean power has dropped 71% and 47% in the past decade.
The technology sector has been the biggest corporate buyer of clean energy, contracting 48% of all wind and solar power. Other significant buyers include the energy, telecommunications and food and beverage sectors, which have contracted 9%, 8% and 7% of total contracted wind and solar, respectively.
As of the end of 2022, 326 companies have contracted a total of 77.4 GW of wind and solar energy, enough to power over 18 million American homes or a thousand data centers. While 47% of this contracted energy is currently operating, the rest is still in development and expected to come online within the next three years.
Companies make up a significant portion of the wind and solar energy market, accounting for 16% of the total by the end of 2022. Texas is the state that benefits the most from this, with 35% of contracted capacity coming from projects in the state.
