Solar panels sit on the roof of Google headquarters in Mountain View. | Photo by Kimberly White/Corbis via Getty Images
Tech companies drove a surge in corporate purchases of clean energy last year, according to a new analysis by BloombergNEF.
Overall, corporations bought a record 31.1 GW of clean energy in 2021, equivalent to more than 10 percent of all new renewable energy capacity added worldwide that year. Over half of the power purchase agreements for clean energy made by corporations were signed by tech giants, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google.
Agreements with utilities or developers to purchase enough clean power to match annual electricity use are one strategy that companies use to claim they are running their operations on 100 percent clean energy. In reality, that clean energy usually isn’t flowing directly into corporate offices…
