Amazon, Meta and Google are actually spending big on clean energy
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Amazon, Meta and Alphabet-owned Google are the largest corporate investors of wind and solar energy in the US, new figures show.
A report (opens in new tab) from the American Clean Power Association (ACPA), an advocacy group, who also revealed that while the technology industry is (perhaps understandably) setting an example to others by purchasing 48% of all clean power, others are following suit.
The amount of clean energy purchased by companies in industries such as energy, telecommunications, and food and beverage has grown at an average annual rate of 73% over the past decade, with investments spanning 49 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico.
Optimism for clean energy
Perhaps more surprisingly, 35% of corporate-purchased contracted capacity comes from Texas, a state known for its “oil boom” in the early 1900s.
This detail in the ACPA report is the second sign that the US oil industry may falter in 2023, after Business today (opens in new tab) recently reported that industry data shows signs of a decline in demand for fossil fuels across the country.
American companies seem to be coming to terms with the fact that clean energy is a necessary, albeit long-term, investment. Contracts have been signed so far for 77.4 gigawatts (GW), distributed among more than 300 companies, enough to power 1,000 data centers or 18 million homes.
Despite that staggering investment, more than half of that energy has yet to come online. However, a spokesperson for the ACPA has said CNBC that it expects this to happen “in the next three years”.
Commitments like these are welcome. As much as we would like to attribute ethics to giants like Amazon, Meta or Google, all of which have recently been embroiled in dismissal, data misuseand monopoly on advertising revenue controversies, the main motive for big tech to move is much less complicated.
The ACPA report claims that the price of clean energy investments finally appears to be low enough for companies to take decisive action.
Solar and wind have seen cost savings of 71% and 47%, respectively, over the past decade, and even though power purchase agreement (PPA) costs will rise in 2022, U.S. companies were still buying 20 GW of clean energy by the end of the year, 4 GW higher than any other year.
While the rationale for America’s drive for clean energy isn’t all that noble, it’s still some comfort that a cross-sector effort to transition to renewables will be better for the planet in the long run.
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