Recharge: Wind power in demand as corporates rethink their renewables mix

Article summary

Recharge's corporate power editor, Andrew Lee, spoke to JP Cerda about what the shift to hourly matching means for corporate buyers, and why night-time wind is about to look a lot more valuable.

The context is the proposed GHG Protocol Scope 2 update, which would move companies from accounting for carbon-free energy once a year towards matching generation to consumption by time and location. "Most companies that claim to be 100% matched on an annual basis are most certainly not 100% matched on an hourly basis," JP told Recharge. Many built their case on solar, which covers annual demand on paper but leaves visible gaps overnight.

That's where the technology mix starts to matter. Renewabl's data suggests a solar-only portfolio covering 100% of annual demand scores 30–50% once you look hour by hour. The same volume in wind can already reach up to 80%, and wind also helps with the closer geographic match the proposed rules would reward. For buyers running around the clock – data centres in particular – that makes wind, and especially night-time wind, more sought-after.

The line that makes this piece different from Renewabl's other GHG Protocol coverage isn't about the technology mix at all. It's what JP says corporates are actually worried about:

"A lot of corporates are wary about what the message is going to be in the future, because they've been claiming to be 100% matched annually for years. And now they're not sure if they'll have to change that message."
_{– JP Cerda, CEO and Co-Founder at Renewabl}

JP's view is that wind becomes one of the main in-demand technologies as data centre load grows, sitting alongside storage and the shaped-profile deals developers are starting to offer: "Big players [in sectors] like offshore wind are actually evolving with the times and offering shaped profiles" that more closely match buyers' real-world demand. The piece also covers a group of major buyers joining the Climate Group's 24/7 Carbon-Free Coalition, and Climate Group figures showing 1,500 businesses now matching hourly, three times as many as a year ago.

Full article

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