Facebook, Microsoft and environmental groups started a national effort Thursday to drive utilities to make purchasing renewable energy easier, which they say is surprisingly difficult in most states.
The Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance, or REBA, was created to lead the effort as a federation of groups, and primarily big technology companies, seek to make renewable energy more available in all states.
Microsoft, one of the principal members of the group, will hold a summit next week at its headquarters in Washington state, officially beginning the effort. The goal is to double renewable energy development over the next decade through market tweaks called “green tariffs,” which encourage electricity companies to supply clean energy locally.
The alliance represents “a new coalition to empower multinational companies to transform electricity systems with renewable energy,” according to the group. It aims to help deploy 60 gigawatts of clean energy by 2025 by leveraging the electricity demand of its dozens of member companies as an incentive for utilities to assist them in doing so.
“We’re proud to be part of the REBA network and the movement to accelerate the transition to renewable energy,” said Brian Janous, Microsoft’s energy strategy director. “We are committed not only to increasing our purchase of green power, but also to working with new partners to bring even more renewable energy onto the grid where we do business.”
Bill Weihl, Facebook’s sustainability officer, told reporters on a call that the alliance marks a “big milestone” in the company’s efforts to secure access to more solar and wind energy. The push is being driven by the need for technology businesses to power their ever-growing fleet of gigantic data centers, including new ones being built outside of Washington, he said.
The firms hope that by leveraging their demand for cleaner resources, they can encourage more utilities to offer better ways of selling renewable electricity to their customers.
Facebook and other technology companies want to work with utilities to “really to open up markets,” Weihl said. He said in a number of markets it can be “impossible” to buy clean energy, and they want to change that.
Utilities, which are not part of the group, will be represented at next week’s summit, said Letha Tawney with the World Resources Institute, one of the environmental organizations behind the effort.
Tawney and Weihl were cautious not to confuse the alliance with past efforts to drive states to restructure their energy markets, which created political backlash in the 1990s and early 2000s, and continues to reverberate among states.
They said it is up to states to decide if they want to restructure their energy markets to encourage renewables. The alliance is seeking to get around such politically charged policies and instead encourage utilities to hone their own internal policies without going through state legislatures to change the law and deregulate.
Electric deregulation changed energy markets in the U.S. by forcing utilities to divest their assets to create more competition. It also caused a backlash among states, which saw the large regional markets that deregulation created as driving up prices for ratepayers.
The regional markets are overseen by the federal government, which adds another layer of contention. The largest deregulated market in the U.S. is run by PJM Interconnection, covering most of the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic region. Renewable energy companies say PJM and other restructured markets make it easier for renewables to compete over those markets that have not restructured.
Tawney said utilities can take action without the “complex politics” surrounding deregulation, which have in the past left “scars” in some states.
She said the large buyers represented by the alliance have been very clear about not unfairly shifting costs.
Weihl said restructuring would be one way to meet the group’s goals, but that’s not the focus. Many jurisdictions are not currently restructured, so the companies need to explore other options such as “green tariffs,” he said.
Green tariffs are programs set up by utilities to allow customers to get up to 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources located on their local grid, according to Tawney’s group.
The tariff is different from how companies purchase renewable energy currently, which is done through buying renewable energy credits, or offsets, that are sold by companies that do not produce the energy locally. The green tariff encourages the local market to build out its own renewable assets to supply power and meet customer demand.
“Under a green tariff, utilities would supply renewable power through a portfolio of renewable energy projects either owned by the utility or contracted with independent power producers in the local area,” according to the World Resources Institute.
