Technology giants announce expansion of solar photovoltaic energy contracts

Technology giants Microsoft and Amazon, which occupy the second and third position of companies with the highest market value, announced this week that they will expand the purchase of energy from photovoltaic solar plants. Amazon's latest expansion added another 23,2 MW from solar sources and 45 MW from wind sources. With this, the leader in retail in the Americas will have a total of 66 plants and 1,342 MW of power from renewable sources.

Microsoft added 150 MW to its portfolio in an agreement with the American manufacturer of thin film panels First Solar. The company claims that the technology chosen for the plant panels to be installed has a carbon footprint six times smaller than conventional panels. The forecast is that this new addition will no longer generate 190 thousand tons of CO2 per year, the equivalent of 37,000 fewer cars. There is also the indirect benefit of improved air quality, which is expected to reduce $12,5 million in healthcare spending per year.

Figure 1. CdTe technology thin film panels from manufacturer First Solar.

These expansions show progress in the adoption of renewable sources by major American companies. This shows that the price of solar energy is already competitive, and that there is a movement to associate the brand with renewable sources. The ranking of the 10 companies that most adopted solar energy and the powers contracted by them is shown below.

Table 1. Ranking of the 10 companies with the highest contracted solar power until 2018.

The combined power of the top 5 companies in the ranking is already greater than the entire distributed generation power in Brazil. This shows that the country still has a lot of possibilities for expansion, and that companies in the national territory still have a lot to gain by investing in photovoltaic solar energy.