The RE100 initiative was launched at Climate Week NYC in 2014. As of 2021 reporting, it consists of 349 companies that have committed to a 100% renewable target despite the economic challenges they face due to the pandemic and global supply chain shocks. RE100 members have a collective revenue of over 6.6 trillion USD (over 7% of global GDP) with operations among a diverse range of sectors in more than 170 markets. 

RE100 - membership growth

The graphs below depict a breakdown of the timeline of firms with regards to their 100% renewable commitment. Globally, the average target year of RE100 members in 2021 reporting is 2030, an extended 2 years compared to the previous period, mainly due to the rapid growth of new membership commitment with an average target year of 2037. The average target years for Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific are 2025, 202,7 and 2042, respectively. 

RE100 - target

The statistics show that 82 RE100 members (22%) reached 100% renewable electricity demand by 2021, and 49% of RE100 member firms have committed to reach this target by 2030. This means that 71% of RE100 members are slated to be 100% renewable by including 2030. In Europe, over 95% of members are expected to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030. 

In 2021 reporting, the aggregated electricity consumption of 315 reporting members (124 are European companies) is over 340TWh, higher than the United Kingdom (the 12th highest consuming country). Despite supply chain shocks along with high commodity and manufacturing costs, renewable electricity growth demonstrated resilience with over 45% of reported electricity consumption; 60% of renewables were sourced from solar PV.

The Conference of the Parties that took place last November in Glasgow (COP26) calls for the private sector to improve financing for adoption and help decarbonising emissions-intensive sectors. Moreover, the UNFCCC called attention to the fossil fuel sector’s reliance on subsides and public finance, calling for redirecting investment to accelerate green transition. 

2022 RE100 - electricity demand

 n 2021 reporting, the aggregated renewable electricity consumption from 133 RE100 members with headquarters in Europe amounts to at least 49TWh. Given over 88.3% of renewables are from GOs (26.62TWh from Green Tariff and 16.79TWh from EACs), this consumption corresponds to around 7.4% of transaction cancellation for renewable GOs across AIB. Due to the limitation on the number of reporting members, the actual level of renewable consumption and the associated potential is likely to be higher. Furthermore, this only accounts for current members of the initiative and the future demand is likely to rise as additional companies join the RE100.

2022 RE100 - RES share by country 

Among 120 RE100 members with headquarters in Europe, companies based in Norway, Finland and Italy achieved 100% renewable electricity in 2020. Correspondingly, transaction cancellation for renewable GOs in 2020 for these countries were 80.85TWh (Norway), 25.88TWh (Finland) and 52.36TWh (Italy). Additionally, 10 out of 14 European countries with RE100 members achieved more than 70% renewable electricity consumption in 2020, demonstrating the growing scale of renewable electricity demand and pivotal role of the private sector in increasing renewable electricity capacity.

2022 RE100 - sector electricity & RES consumption

Globally, driven by ICT, financial and technology companies, the service sector continues to be the leading sector in RE100 membership. Notably, the hard-to-abate manufacturing sector experienced the highest growth in member companies, with an average target year of 2035. Most of the recently added members are based in the Asia-Pacific region, with an average target year of 2040. The transportation services, consisting of airport and post service mostly in Europe, had the best performance concerning the average target year, the highest renewable shares while low total electricity consumption.

2022 RE100 - RES share by sector

Generally, except for the hospitality sector, all other sectors in Europe outperformed the global average renewable electricity shares. Moreover, manufacturing and material sectors in Europe are well-above the rest of world concerning the renewable electricity shares. 

In 2021, RE100 implemented the first updated technical criteria since 2016 with two new sourcing methods for credible claim of passive use for renewable electricity, including:

 Default EACs are the certificates retired by the utility or supplier on behalf of their customer for defaulted delivered renewable electricity, which has not been voluntarily procured by the customer. This complies with the RPS (Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard) in the US and LGCs (Large-scale Generation Certificates) under the RET (Renewable Energy Target) in Australia. Around 2.5TWh of renewable electricity supported by EACs was claimed passively through this method. The reporting members with operations in Europe claimed 523GWh of renewable electricity (3.3% of total renewable electricity) delivered by default EACs, including UK (253GWh), Italy (179GWh), France (36GWh), Germany (29GWh) and Netherlands (26GWh).

 Default delivered renewable electricity from a grid that is 95% or more renewable and where there is no mechanism for tracking energy attributes. This only applies to the entire national grid with a high percentage of renewable electricity grid mix. Only Paraguay, Uruguay and Ethiopia meet this criterion. 

2022 RE100 - sourcing method distribution

Contracts with suppliers was still the main form of renewable energy sourcing amongst RE100 members. EACs (Unbundled and Default EACs) continued in dominating among sourcing methods of RE100 members worldwide, with 43% in aggregate, roughly in line with the past reporting period. PPAs, the direct contracting between electricity generator and consumer, increased 2% share in the total reported renewable electricity procurement from 26% in 2020 reporting to 28% in 2021 reporting. 

2022 RE100 - plant age distribution

Moreover, since 2021, RE100 members are required to disclose the commissioning dates of facilities for renewable electricity procurement. With around 30% response rate in reporting, there was 86% of reported green tariff purchases not covered, while nearly 50% of reported PPA purchases was disclosed. The statistics suggest a strong preference of RE100 members for PPA procurement from renewable assets less than two years old. Concerning the unbundled EACs, 96% of procurement was delivered from facilities commissioned since 2006. According to the RE100, given 15-year financing life of conventional facilities of renewable electricity, unbundled EACs significantly supported the financing of such facilities in renewable production. 

2022 RE100 - RES sourcing method by area

Renewable electricity purchases in Europe account for 34% of overall renewable electricity consumption by RE100 members in 2021 reporting. Green electricity products/tariffs were the main form of renewable energy sourcing amongst RE100 members with European operations. Based on reporting by 124 RE100 members, 54% of electricity was sourced through green electricity products from suppliers, corresponding to 26.62TWh in 2021 reporting. The subsequent most prominent sourcing strategy is EAC purchases (both unbundled and Default EACs), GOs in Europe. The use of GOs meets the criteria of the CDP and the Climate Group. Based on the 2021 report, 34.3% of electricity was sourced using EACs, corresponding to a total of 16.78TWh of renewable electricity procurement.

However, contrary to the increasing traction of PPAs on a global level, the statistics in Europe indicate that only 7.7% of renewable electricity purchases (3.77TWh) were delivered by PPAs, whether through detailed spreadsheet reporting and less detailed CDP reporting. It may be caused by the wrong categorization of reporting member concerning the overlapping characteristics of PPAs and green electricity products, as some supply arrangements contracted with an energy retailer might still have underlying direct transacting between consumers and generators. Meanwhile, there were 13TWh of renewable electricity delivered by PPAs without region specification, which could significantly affect the sourcing shares of PPAs in Europe. 

2022 RE100 - PPA growth

Nevertheless, the overall renewable electricity share sourced from PPAs in European RE100 member increased from 5% to 8% in 2021 reporting. This upward trend was in line with accelerating growth of PPA contracting in Europe provided by Wind Europe. New PPAs equivalent to 6.6GW with capacity addition in renewable electricity were entered into Europe in 2021.  Concerning the rapid growth of European commercial and industrial on-site installations with a total expected capacity forecast of 407GW by 2030, PPAs as renewable sourcing is expected to appear more frequently in RE100 reporting in Europe. In addition, the current high volatility and sharp increase in energy prices would lead more corporations to hedge against the price uncertainties, thus further driving up the demand of corporate renewable PPAs.

Wind and solar are the top two preferred renewable source in European PPAs, which are dominated by Nordic and Iberian markets with favourable prices, respectively. In 2021, the Nordic countries offered the lowest-priced PPAs for wind, with an average price of €30.90/MWh in the Nord Pool power market, while the Iberian power market offered the lowest priced PPAs for solar, with an average price of €33.10/MWh. Spain has become the fastest growing and most competitive renewables market in Europe since 2020, accelerated by the 2021-2030 Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC). Meanwhile, with large-scale offshore wind farms in North and Baltic and subsidy-free solar farms in South, Germany has emerged for corporate PPAs procurement.

2022 RE100 - PPA shares

In RE100 2021 reporting, globally, the manufacturing sector had the second highest electricity demand based on a per-member basis after the retail sector. It is worth mentioning that compared to retail, manufacturing members tend to spread over far fewer sites, giving high potential for considerable improvement in the local grids. However, except for transportation services and infrastructure, manufacturing had the lowest share of PPA procurement, as RE100 members operating in China had the highest electricity consumption shares in manufacturing (10.9TWh) while there are obstacles to access PPAs in China. Excluding the barrier of PPAs accessibility in Asia, the manufacturing sector has played a significant role in PPAs sourced renewable electricity in Europe. 

2022 RE100 - PPA volume by sector

n 2021, heavy industry (manufacturing, materials, and infrastructure) contributed the second highest portion of PPAs, led by Norway, Sweden, and Spain in Europe. Amongst the most sizeable contracts, Sidenor (Greek steel company) has signed a 10-year PPA equivalent to 350GWh annual energy supply of solar and wind with Naturgy, and BASF (German multinational chemical producer) has settled a 25-year PPA of over 20.7TWh of renewable energy with ENGIE, mainly onshore and offshore wind. Meanwhile, the players such as Air Liquide, Borealis and Kemira, which entered PPAs market in 2020, have signed additional contracts in 2021 too.

Similar to North America, the ICT sector is the main player in the European PPA market. The PPA contracting of technology corporations maintained an upward trend in 2021. Amazon, the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe, has signed corporate PPAs of over 1,300MW in the Netherlands, UK, Sweden, and Spain by 2021 Q2, and added a PPA of 116MW of wind energy with Ørsted by the end of 2021. The new market participant, Yandex (Russian IT company) has reached a 5-year PPA of wind energy with Ilmatar Energy, to cover 100% renewables need in its data centre in Mäntsälä, Finland.

Notably, in Europe, the large corporates are not sole players. A diverse universe of market participants has continuously expanded, such as SMEs, state-owned organizations, universities and even cities. It is widely expected that, supported by a growing competitive regulatory framework, PPAs of renewable energy will play a crucial role in market of non-subsidised renewable energy by 2030, thus drive up the production of utility-scale wind and solar PV. 

The RE100 best practice document specifies several criteria for renewable energy claims. Amongst others, members must ensure that claims are substantiated by attributes that have been reliably tracked from a generator to a consumer.

According to the RE100 Technical Advisory Group, attributes include everything that identifies the generation source and all non-power outputs, including the fuel type, location, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the other environmental and social impacts and benefits of the electricity generation.

If attributes are transacted without the use of certificates, the transfer of attributes must be clearly articulated in a legally enforceable contract, and claims must be based on the permanent end-use ownership or final use of those attributes.

Where energy attribute certificates can be sold separately from electricity, the electricity buyer does not have an exclusive RE usage claim unless they own and retire the certificates, and likewise the certificate buyer does not have an exclusive usage claim where the electricity is also being claimed/reported as renewable or individual attributes are being claimed/transacted in another way.

This requires that all RE instruments have been retired by or on behalf of the same entity and that there are no other usage claims being made on the generation of attributes. Furthermore, this implies that there should be no double counting. The requirements for credible RE usage claims should be verified by an independent third-party.

The RE100 members with operations in Europe source 88.3% of electricity from green electricity tariffs (54%) and GOs combined (33% from unbundled EACs and 1.3% Default EACs). We assume that suppliers predominantly use GOs to prove the origin of electricity to RE100 consumers (partly due to RE claims requirements as mentioned above). Thus, it can be estimated that as much as 88.3% of the European based RE100 renewable electricity consumption is being tracked by GOs. This indicates that the demand by RE100 firms made up 7% of all cancellation volumes in the AIB and that the demand could increase to as much as 11% (approximately 70TWh) by 2025 given the historical growth rates of the RE100 and AIB volumes.

The contribution of the RE100 initiative towards utilizing clean energy is not only seen in their direct involvement but also in that they are inspiring other firms to commit to renewable electricity usage. 

More information about the RE100 can be found on their 

RE100 Annual Disclosure Report,  January 2022. 

Stepping Up: RE100 gathers speed in challenging markets

RE100 Progress and Insights Report, December 2020. 

Growing renewable power: companies seizing leadership opportunities

RE100 Progress and Insights Report, December 2019. 

Going 100% renewable: how companies are demanding a faster market response

RE100 Progress and Insights Report, November 2018. 

Moving to truly global impact: Influencing renewable electricity markets.

Making Business Sense: How RE100 Companies Have an Edge on Their Peers

Making credible renewable electricity usage claims. 

Market Report

Demand Series: The role of the RE100 in driving demand for GOs

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