谷歌和沃尔玛如何与公用设施一起采购清洁能力

去年，谷歌宣布追踪其全球运营100％可再生能源 - 所有的数据中心和办事处。上周，公司确认了purchased enough renewable energy匹配2017年静蘑菇业务消耗的每千瓦时的电力。总而言之，该公司正在购买大约3千兆瓦的清洁能力，或者超过五种典型燃煤植物的产量。

One key element of last week's announcement is a deal with Georgia Power, approved last week by the state's Public Service Commission, for Google to procure nearly 80 megawatts of new solar to power its Douglas County data center, about 14 miles due west of Atlanta. Three other big companies, including Walmart, Target and Johnson & Johnson, were also part of the arrangement, which totaled 177 MW of solar.

The deal with Georgia Power, a unit of Southern Company, the third-largest investor-owned utility in the United States, is part of an emerging strategy for purchasing clean power in states less likely to have regulatory or legislative mandates, such as renewable portfolio strategies, to increase the deployment of renewable energy. That makes this deal even more notable and continues the acceleration of renewables in red-state markets that until recently hadn't been particularly friendly to renewables, but which have become of increased interest to companies seeking more affordable real estate and labor markets in the United States.

与佐治亚州的交易是在不太可能具有监管或立法授权的情况下购买清洁能力的新出现策略的一部分，例如可再生组合策略。

例如，上个月，Facebook宣布了一个新的数据中心，近一百万平方英尺，在亚特兰大东南部的纽顿县，完全由可再生能源提供动力。谷歌宣布将在本月突破6亿美元，在阿拉巴马州桥港的数据中心，修复了20世纪50年代最初建于20世纪50年代并由田纳西州谷权威的退役燃煤电厂;谷歌将与TVA合作，购买足够的可再生能源以符合其消耗。在过去的几年里，谷歌与公爵能源一起制作了一个绿色源骑士为北卡罗来纳州Lenoir的数据中心提供权力。沃尔玛在1月份，沃尔玛在拉拉巴马拉斐特72兆瓦太阳能电场上翻了一番，以帮助零售商符合其可再生能源目标。该设施正在与阿拉巴马州的伙伴关系建立，与格鲁吉亚电力一样，是南方公司的单位。

其中一些，但并非所有人都是在美国东南部的相对近期政策转变的结果。“北卡罗来纳州，南卡罗来纳和格鲁吉亚等领导国家制定了强有力的政策，促进并鼓励可再生能源增长，”report南方联盟于2月份发布清洁能源。

“On the other hand," noted the report, "utilities in other southeastern states — particularly Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi — continue to operate in a public policy vacuum. The slow pace of solar growth in these states, and the outdated thinking by utilities, leaves them with solar projections considerably below the regional average through 2021."

A new roadmap

对格鲁吉亚的权力,最新举措开始超过18 months ago, in August 2016, when the Georgia Public Service Commission approved the company's 2016 Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP. An IRP is a utility's roadmap for meeting forecasted annual energy demand, plus some reserve margin, through a combination of supply-side and demand-side resources over a specific time period — often three to five years. States typically require utilities, by legislation or regulation, to undertake such planning efforts, which are then reviewed and approved by the state's public utilities commission.

佐治亚州电力2016年IRP将该效用增加了2021年以上增加了1.6 GW的新太阳能和其他可再生能源。此外，该实用程序致力于200 MW的“自我建设”可再生项目 - 由实用程序本身建造的。（对于格鲁吉亚，可再生能源通常是指太阳能，因为国家没有可行的风电市场。）

IRP中的描述有点松动。这使我们能够与客户合作，并找出对他们重要的事情。

“IRP中的描述有点松散，“格鲁吉亚动力的可再生能源校长Brooke Starr Haman，向我解释。”这给了我们可选择与客户合作，并弄清楚他们从定价对他们重要的事情透视，对他们的续集 - 能源目标的观点来看，他们对他们来说重要的是什么，从时序的角度来看。因此，真的，真的是一个有很多利益相关者，包括客户，行业和监管机构的合作过程。“

It has only been a few years since solar even made sense in Georgia. The state has relatively low electricity rates, meaning that solar's costs needed to drop significantly to be economically viable. And indeed, since 2012, when Georgia Power began to ramp up renewables deployment, the price of utility-scale solar photovoltaics in the United States dropped nearly in half, from about $1.80 per watt to just under $1 in 2017, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“太阳能技术的下降成本确实帮助我们以一种方法方式继续向我们的投资组合添加可再生能源，”Hamen说。

Even prior to the IRP, Hamen and her team had been in discussions with Google about "how we could partner with them to help them meet their renewable goals," she said.

但在公用事业和大型商业和工业客户之间锻造出优惠，这可能是一个艰巨的过程。

“我花了大量的时间和很大的耐心和大量艰苦的工作”，以制定出一个安排与公用事业，能源召回市场开发的谷歌的负责人迈克尔·特雷尔。“我们通过这个过程中学到的一件事之一是，公用事业对客户的需求响应能够获得更清洁的权力来源。”

But, he added, "Georgia Power deserves every bit of credit for seeing this through and pulling together a program of this nature."

沟通和协作

The growth of deals such as this has been spurred by collaborations among corporations seeking to grow their renewables purchases. For example, Google has been working with groups such as the可再生能源买家联盟in the United States andRe-Source Platformin the European Union to facilitate greater access to renewably sourced energy.

另一个关键的球员是National Key Accounts program在爱迪生电力研究所，代表美国投资者拥有的电气公司。EEI计划有助于“多站点客户”与公用事业公司合作“开发高效的能源管理策略”。在EEI的两次国家重点账户研讨会上，公用事业和大客户会面了解新技术，政策，产品和服务。

Walmart是关键帐户计划的活动成员。“从一般的角度来看，我们花了很多时间培养了公用事业 - 客户关系，以便当这些东西出现时，我们已经破坏了我们需要打破的很多基础，以便有讨论，”沃尔玛能源与战略分析总监Steve Chriss上周告诉我。在关键的账户会议上，克里斯说：“这对公用事业公司有所了解，他们的限制是什么，他们必须在我们想做的事情方面处理的是什么。”

Once you get into a vacuum and you start designing programs that are not in line with your customer base, you're really just spinning your wheels and wasting time.

Such communication is key to success, say Chriss, Terrell, Hamen and others.

“我们与客户合作设计我们的节目非常重要，”格鲁吉亚电力的哈曼说。“一旦你进入真空，你开始设计不符合您的客户群的程序，你真的只是旋转你的轮子和浪费时间。”

在最近的佐治亚州电力协议中，谷歌，沃尔玛和其他两位大客户希望确保将可再生能源添加到格鲁吉亚网格中不会提高其他客户的能源价格。这四家公司同意吸收任何额外费用。

哈芬解释说：“约有40％的客户群中的家庭收入中位数少于40,000美元。”“而且，对于我们来说，它真的很重要，当我们去采购可再生能源或创造我们的计划时，我们不会创造交叉补贴。我们无法对我们的低收入来说，我们无法向我们的低收入压力客户群。”

谷歌的Terrell说，虽然这种灵活性和定制可能有所帮助，但它们也可以有一个缺点。“这些方案令人鼓舞，他们正在突破，但如果你真的想向数千家扩展到数以千计的公司，我们并不相信这些单独量身定制的计划可以以足以解决紧急解决的方式来实现这一点需要我们必须解决气候变化并找到清洁的权力来源。“

他阐述了：“我们需要更多开放的采购平台。我们需要继续驾驶和尝试这样的程序。我认为我们需要寻找方法来接受更大的规模。但我们确实需要继续寻找方法拥有更多开放的购买平台，我们可以获得更多涉及的公司，有更多的差异化产品，有更多的访问和更多的规模。“

Three key steps

I asked Walmart's Chriss to offer some insights gleaned from working with utilities such as Georgia Power to procure renewables. He offered three keys to success:

1. 有谈话。“Utilize the channels that you have, especially on the customer service side, to have the conversation with the utilities that you want to work with. Because if they don't know what you're looking for, it's hard for them to provide it."
2. 了解您的口味和偏好风险。“There's the opportunity to save money, but that opportunity is tied to taking on the incremental risk of that project. The projects aren't always going to be in the money in each billing cycle, but I think everybody, both on the customer and the utility side, are looking to bring the best resources they can to bear to potentially deliver the best economics. But you have to really have a sense as a customer what you're comfortable with in terms of the risk side of the equation."
3. 了解您愿意注册的内容。“在沃尔玛，为了公司治理原因，我们不会在15年内签订合同。所以，我们不能看一下20年的计划，因为我们无法签署它。细节就此而且很重要为客户有一种感觉，并将其传达给公用事业。“

Companies such as Google and Walmart may not be typical — few companies boast their size, reach and appetite for clean power — but they are nonetheless laying the groundwork for other companies to follow. In some cases, intentionally so.

谷歌的Terrell说：“我们不仅想改变我们的运作方式，而且我们真的希望改变世界以解决气候变化的方式。”“我们认识到这是我们是一个非常大的权力用户的领域。这是我们公司与许多其他公司分开的东西。所以我们在这里有一个非常专注和深度的能源团队，每天都在考虑这些问题。

“我们认识到，我们可以利用我们所做的一些来帮助他人在我们的脚步上遵循我们的脚步，并与我们一起试图将可再生能够更大的规模。坦率地，我们需要超过四家公司签署这样的程序。我们需要400甚至4,000个像格鲁吉亚这样的地方。“