Google, Amazon, and Apple — these tech leaders were all early adopters of what is now a well-established way of procuring renewable energy directly from the source: a power purchase agreement, or PPA.
A PPA is a long-term contract between a power producer and a customer, allowing the customer to secure a supply of clean, affordable energy during the tenor of the contract period, typically 10-25 years.
Power purchase agreements can be signed for all types of energy, however, solar and wind power have become the most popular ones.
According to the latest Corporate Energy Market Outlook by BloombergNEF, companies around the world purchased a record amount of clean energy through PPAs in 2022. In total, 36.7 gigawatts (GW) of offsite projects were backed with PPAs, signed by more than 167 companies. Adding the onsite PPAs signed, this figure is significantly higher.