Corporate Solar Offtakers in US Contribute 14% of Installed Solar Capacity; Meta Takes Lead

Major US Firms Announces Financing & Investments for Solar Projects, Energy Storage

As per a study by Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) corporate solar offtakers in the USA now make up 14 per cent of solar capacity installed in the country. At the forefront of this impact is Meta.

Up until June this year, solar power capacity contracted by American corporates stood at a cumulative capacity of almost 19 GW. The American corporate contributed for 14% of all installed solar capacity in the country.

Corporate off-site & on-site solar procurement

For on-site as well as off-site solar, the cumulative capacity has witnessed a rapid rise from 9.4 GW until 2019-end. This can be primarily attributed to the growth in off-site corporate solar purchases. Off-site solar procurement currently makes up 55% of all commercial solar use.

As per the report, one can expect commercial installations increase to double over the period of the next three years. Of this, close to 27 GW of off-site projects with corporate offtakers will have come online by 2025. Of this capacity, Amazon make up 10 GW.

Tech, social media giants at the forefront

Corporates are taking the lead when it comes to solar installations. Meta is at the forefront with 3.58 GW capacity installed through June 2022. The American firm alone contributes almost 3% of all solar installations in the country. The firm signed mega projects, which led to its cumulative contracted solar capacity to grow by over 380% from 2019 to 3.58 GW.

Followed by Meta is Amazon with 1.11 GW capacity. Apple comes next with 987 MW. Walmart and Microsoft trail with with 689 MW and 551 MW respectively.

As far as installation of individual solar systems are concerned, retailers Target and Walmart take the lead in numbers.

What drives this upward corporate trend? 

There has been a significant rise in commercial corporate solar expansion. The report says that the reason behind this is the shrink of 51% in solar energy prices over the last ten years. This, in turn, has been led by the corporate sector chasing decarbonization goals.

The study further estimates that over the next five years, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will augment the growth of off-site segment by 51% and on-site solar by 24%.