Solar will surpass wind power in corporate renewable energy purchases – pv magazine USA

August 21, 2019Tim Sylvia

Wood Mackenzie and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) today released a new report, Analysis of the demand for commercial and industrial wind energy in the United States, describing the imminent boom in renewable energy supply we face and the place of wind and solar power in this boom.

The report begins by stating that in 2018, businesses signed more than 6 GW of Electricity Purchase Contracts (PPAs), more than ever before, and provided an estimate of demand for electricity. 39 renewable energy up to 85 GW by 2030 in the largest US companies. .

Surprise, surprise, the same companies we saw as the best dogs of last month Activity Report on Solar Means 2018, are at the top of all time in terms of renewable energy supply. The only exception to this rule is Target, the company's 229 MW from a broad portfolio of 464 facilities, located primarily on the roofs of retail stores. Since this report only follows the PPAs, Target takes care of it.

The renewable energy production capacity of companies is growing exponentially each year and is expected to continue to increase, with the exception of a two-year expected decline when the ITC will be exhausted, the question of knowing why companies are turning to renewable energy is becoming more and more important. To answer this question, AWEA and WoodMac identified four key factors that accelerate adoption: branding, investor pressure, peer pressure and the use of CSR to mitigate future risks.

These first three factors are quite explicit. The view that humans contribute to irreversible and damaging climate change is popular and is gaining popularity day by day. More and more people accept it, as well as a larger number of companies, such as, companies are made up of people. Thus, between the pressure of customers, competitors and investors, and the belief that climate change is happening, more and more companies will be looking to deal with this threat.

The last factor is related to this point, but not directly. What this means is that the reasoning can be twofold. The first is that companies feel responsible to stop contributing to the destruction of the Earth and look for ways to mitigate the damage or heal the planet. For this reason, not only does the company obtain positive approval from abroad, but it also fights climate change, the effects of which could have a significant impact on the operation of the company.

However, the most interesting content of the report came at the very end. Starting in 2021, the adoption of solar energy by businesses is expected to outpace that of wind energy and, as the report predicts (2030), it will never turn around. In fact, remember that in retrospect, the gap between solar and wind energy adoption is expected to widen dramatically, peaking in 2027, when WoodMackenzie predicts that companies will outsource more than 12.5 GW of energy. solar energy, compared with only 1.3 GW of wind energy. . During the first year of the repurchase, namely 2021, companies should adopt nearly 3 GW of solar energy, against 1.7 GW of solar energy.

In fact, the fall of the wind is dramatic, eclipsed by the unbridled rise of the solar. This is an impious figure to think about now, but the report predicts that the total adoption of solar energy by businesses until 2030 will reach 97 GW. This is compared to 22 GW over the same period for the wind. By 2030, the adoption of wind energy should never reach half the expected 4.2 GW bar by 2020, with a minimum of 966 MW expected by 2024. It should also to note the significant decrease expected for solar every year after the peak of 12.5 GW 2027.

It is not that the wind as a resource is doomed to failure, and it is not the intention of this author to belittle the wind as a source of production. The wind, like the sun, can not do everything alone. As the report says:

In the absence of significant changes in turbine performance or cost reduction, it is increasingly evident that, to cope with the growing penetration of renewable energy into wind energy, a storage solution Long-term energy needs to be developed to cope with its weekly and seasonal growth / slowdown cycle.

In summary, the main advantage of solar energy over wind energy is that it is more predictable and easier to predict production figures. However, as in the case of solar energy, wind projects will be better served to become wind + storage projects. For these intermittent sources, the storage capacity of the production will be just as valuable as the sun and the wind moving in the next decade and beyond.