Tech giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft and Nucor signed a deal with US-based energy company Duke Energy to support carbon-free energy generation and support future energy needs of large businesses in North Carolina and South Carolina. The announcement about the MoU was made at the White House Summit on Domestic Nuclear Deployment.
The companies have proposed developing new rate structures, or tariffs, designed to lower long-term investment costs in clean energy technologies and long-duration storage.
These proposed Accelerating Clean Energy (ACE) tariffs would enable businesses like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nucor to directly support carbon-free energy generation investments through innovative financing structures and contributions that address project risk to lower costs of emerging technologies. ACE tariffs would facilitate beneficial on-site generation at customer facilities, participation in load flexibility programs and investments in clean energy assets – features attractive to customers with large-scale energy needs.
The framework would also include a Clean Transition Tariff (CTT) to provide individualized portfolios of new carbon-free energy to commercial and industrial customers. It would match clean-energy generation and customer load to accelerate overall grid decarbonization.
“As the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, Amazon is committed to enabling new sources of carbon-free energy to help power our operations and the communities where our customers live and work. With a footprint of data centers, fulfillment centers and corporate buildings across Ohio, the Carolinas and Florida, we’re excited to collaborate with Duke Energy to find new solutions that can help us achieve our Climate Pledge to be net zero carbon by 2040, and today’s agreement marks an important step in that journey,” said Kevin Miller, Vice President of Global Data Centers at Amazon Web Services.
Briana Kobor, Head of Energy Market Innovation at Google said, “As we continue to progress toward our goal to operate every Google campus on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030, we are always looking for opportunities to accelerate the delivery of new clean power to the grid. The Clean Transition Tariff creates a pathway for us and our peers to bring new, innovative solutions to the forefront faster, in a region we have called home for more than 15 years.”