Data from Cornwall Insight, included in their insight paper ‘A corporates guide to decarbonising power’ has shown that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) looking to save money on energy bills, and increase their use of renewable energy, could save money by purchasing their energy jointly with other SMEs through a Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA).
CPPAs which allow corporations to get long-term fixed energy price security with little or no upfront costs, have up until now been reserved for large companies that have a good credit rating. However, with supply from renewable energy generators looking to surpass demand from large corporations committed to 100% renewable energy (Figure 1) for at least the next two years, some generators are now considering selling collective CPPAs to groups of smaller companies.
With some SMEs seeing their gas bills soar by 250%1 this year, a new avenue of energy procurement could help struggling businesses stay afloat.
Figure 1: Demand for CPPAs from RE100 corporations compared to the pipeline of renewable energy generation.