By Heather Clancy / Source: BusinessGreen

Two-thirds of the Fortune 100 want to buy electricity generated by off-site renewable energy sources this year – or at least that’s what they’re saying publicly.

The problem: the procurement process is complicated, and only a half-dozen big businesses actually have signed purchase orders, including Google, IKEA, Mars, Microsoft and Walmart.

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Yes, these companies and others have gotten creative about on-site renewables investments, but that’s a subject for another day. To truly make an impact, they need access to far more renewable energy generating sources.

Against that reality, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) hopes to add far more names to that list with this week’s launch of a new Business Renewables Center (BRC), which aims to make the procurement process more straightforward.

Aside from RMI, the new centre will be supported by three other organizations involved in the broader Corporate Renewables Partnership that began brewing about two years ago: World Wildlife Fund (WWF), World Resources Institute (WRI) and BSR.

The collective goal by 2025: add 60 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity to the amount purchased by businesses. That’s roughly double today’s total. To get there will take about 600 corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs), covering 100 megawatts.

“Corporations can be a powerful lever for expanding renewable energy in the United States and beyond,” said RMI Managing Director Herve Touati, explaining the motivation behind the center’s creation. “They can lock in long-term affordable prices for clean energy that supports the bottom line, reduce their carbon footprint and fulfill their corporate sustainability commitments.”

With its mission to help companies collaborate toward better renewable procurement pratices, BRC is a logical extension of the groundwork laid in July by WWF and WRI with their publication of the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles.

That document, originally signed by 12 companies including three of the BRC founders (Bloomberg, GM and HP), was meant to inspire deeper dialogs between corporate buyers and renewable energy suppliers. As of October, 19 global brands had signed the principles. Together, they represent a combined demand of 10 million megawatt-hours of electricity annually, or roughly enough to power one million homes.

Breaking down clean energy barriers

Economically, the transition to renewable energy is starting to make sense for large corporate power users.

A report published in mid-January by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) suggests that biomass, hydropower, geothermal and onshore wind resources are cost-competitive with electricity generated by coal, oil and natural gas. What’s more, solar photovoltaic costs continue to fall quickly – more than 50 percent over the past four years.

Read more @ BusinessGreen