Guidance On Buying Renewable Energy Available From RMI

Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI’s) Business Renewables Center (BRC) launched its Buyers Roadmap, a software-based educational platform to help buyers of renewable energy better understand the transaction process for procuring wind and solar power.

“We set out to create an online learning experience for those who want to take action on their sustainability efforts, but don’t know where to begin,” said Miranda Ballentine, managing director at RMI and lead at the Business Renewables Center. “With this tool, procurement managers, sustainability directors, and even CFOs can all log in and learn about aspects of a renewable energy transaction that are most important to them. As more companies and organizations double down on sustainability, quality education can be the difference between a smart renewable energy deal or a poorly informed deal.”

The Buyers Roadmap educates nonutility energy buyers through a standardized process to plan and execute a power purchase agreement (PPA) for renewable power. The Buyers Roadmap includes detailed instruction and advice to fit a range of buyer needs, including determining energy load and company goals, running a request for proposal (RFP) process, and ensuring follow up after the commercial operation date.

“Working through the BRC Buyers Roadmap has really helped provide clarity for the renewable energy PPA transaction process,” said Richard Profit at PepsiCo. “Renewable energy can play a key role in meeting PepsiCo’s goal of reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by at least 20 percent by 2030, and encouraging new wind and solar capacity will help us collectively move to a lower carbon economy.”

The BRC’s Buyers Roadmap also includes a number of deep dive guides on topics such as accounting, risks associated with long-term PPAs, and an RFP template to streamline the request for proposal process with proven best practices.

The Buyers Roadmap was developed as part of BRC’s digital Learn|Analyze|Opportunities product suite that includes the Market Analysis Platform (MAP) for identifying project value and the BRC Marketplace, which connects corporate buyers and service providers with available renewable energy projects and project developers. The BRC’s product suite is available to a growing membership of over 200 corporate buyers, renewable energy project developers, and intermediary service providers.

Access the Buyer’s Roadmap on the BRC website.