Tech giants power record surge in renewable energy sales

(The Guardian, 28 Jan 2020) Amount of clean energy bought by companies triples in two years, with Google biggest buyer.

The world’s biggest tech companies fuelled a record surge in the amount of renewable energy sold directly to global corporations last year, according to new figures.

The amount of clean energy from renewable energy developers bought by companies has tripled in the past two years, driven by a growing corporate appetite for sustainable energy.

Tech giants including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft have emerged as the biggest buyers of renewable energy to help power their data centres.

BloombergNEF found that global corporations have purchased enough clean energy in the past 12 years to eclipse the entire energy capacity of countries such as Vietnam or Poland.

Tech firms bought almost a quarter of the renewable energy sold to global companies last year, according to the report.

The largest buyer is Google, which last year revealed plans for the biggest renewable energy deal in corporate history. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said the clean energy deal would include 18 separate agreements to supply Google with electricity from wind and solar projects across the world.

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The Guardian, 28 Jan 2020: Tech giants power record surge in renewable energy sales