Corporate clean energy purchases hit record levels last year, more than doubling to over 13GW, according to research from BloombergNEF.
BNEF said a total of 13.4GW of corporate power purchase agreements were signed last year, up from 6.2GW in 2017.
A total of 121 companies signed deals in 21 countries, with over 60% of the PPAs done in the US.
Some 8.5GW of corporate PPAs were agreed in the US, with Facebook leading the way with 2.6GW.
Mexico and Brazil also saw PPA activity with the Americas as a whole accounting for 9.1GW.
BNEF said a new trend in the US last year was the emergence of smaller, first-time corporate clean power buyers, with 34 companies making their first purchase in 2018.
In the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, corporations also purchased record volumes of clean energy, inking deals for 2.3GW and doubling the 1.1GW signed in 2017.
BNEF said the Nordics were once again the hot spot for activity, with aluminium producers Norsk Hydro and Alcoa Corp purchasing the most clean energy in Europe in 2018.
Multinational technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet subsidiary Google, were also major buyers in Europe.
Asia-Pacific saw 2GW of contracts signed, more than the previous two years combined, although most of the activity was in two countries – India and Australia.
BNEF head of corporate sustainability Jonas Rooze said: “Corporations have signed contracts to purchase over 32GW of clean power since 2008, an amount comparable to the generation capacity of the Netherlands, with 86% of this activity coming since 2015 and more than 40% in 2018 alone.”


