New Coalition Aims To Bring More Renewables To Corporations

The Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA) has commenced operations as a coalition aiming to empower multinational companies to transform electricity systems with renewable energy.

Specifically, REBA plans to help facilitate and bring online 60 GW of corporate renewable energy in the U.S. by 2025.

The group is led by non-governmental organizations Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). According to REBA, more than 60 companies – including Facebook and Microsoft – are members of one or more of the coalition’s initiatives.

REBA says it will facilitate solutions among customers, renewable energy suppliers, utilities and policymakers to overcome market barriers and drive collaboration among all parties.

By doing as follows, each of the four organizations that make up the coalition addresses the needs of U.S. businesses looking to secure renewable energy:

• Aggregating corporate purchasing demand, articulating business needs to the market, and working with utilities to develop solutions that better serve corporate buyers through WRI and WWF’s Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles;
• Developing an ecosystem of solutions providers, scaling renewable energy developments and helping companies execute their renewable energy strategies through RMI’s Business Renewables Center; and
• Increasing companies’ use of renewable energy to power data centers by collaborating with power providers, utilities and policymakers through BSR’s Future of Internet Power.

Brian Janous, Microsoft’s director of energy strategy, says the company is “proud to be part of the REBA network and the movement to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.”

“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, director of sustainability at Facebook, notes that “openness and collaboration help everyone move faster.”

“We need to develop more new sources of renewable energy, and we need to make it easier for companies of all kinds to use renewable energy,” he says.

Michael Polsky, president and CEO of Invenergy, adds, “The extremely competitive and stable prices of wind and solar energy offer a tremendous value proposition for businesses in terms of economics and sustainability. As a founding project developer of the Business Renewables Center, Invenergy is glad to be supporting the launch of REBA to ensure U.S. businesses can realize this value.”