Renewable Energy Buyers
Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance
WRI is one of four NGOs that formerly led the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA), a coalition to empower multinational companies to transform electricity systems with renewable energy. Operating as its own organization since 2018, REBA aims to help facilitate and deploy 60 gigawatts (GW) of new corporate renewable energy in the United States by 2025. WRI serves on the Governing Board and Advisory Board of the new organization. To learn more, visit rebuyers.org.
Buyers’ Principles
The Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles convey the criteria that industry-leading, multinational companies are seeking when buying renewable energy from utilities and other suppliers.
A group of large energy buyers developed the Buyers’ Principles to spur progress on renewable energy and to add their perspective to the future of the U.S. energy and electricity system. WRI and WWF facilitated their efforts.
WRI and WWF publicly launched the principles in July 2014 with 12 signatories. By June 2018, 75 companies had signed on, representing over 69 million MWh of annual demand by 2020. To learn more, visit buyersprinciples.org.
Customer-Utility Engagement Forums
Through previous Customer-Utility Engagement Forums, WRI facilitated collaborative problem-solving between utility executives and their corporate customers.
WRI worked with the utility executive teams, corporate buyers and sustainability executives to identify relevant regulatory processes, state policy issues and rate-making matters. A half-day problem-solving workshop focused on solutions that maintain system reliability, stability and affordability while creating new business models that bring clean energy online under structures that regulators can approve. Solutions can go beyond utility-designed voluntary renewable energy products and strive for larger greenhouse gas emissions reductions and benefits to the grid.
Forums have resulted in:
- Utility-customer driven innovative solutions that regulators have approved. More than 2,200 MW of clean energy deals have directly emerged from these new tariffs.
- Regional best practices for simplifying access to low-cost, clean energy options while conveying overall benefits to the grid.
Transactions that deliver new renewable energy to the grid and benefits to both the utility and the customers, e.g. Microsoft and Dominion’s 20 MW solar project, Puget Sound Energy’s wind announcement, and the successful partnership of Facebook and PacifiCorp.