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Apple seems to be embedding its renewable energy commitments into its corporate structure. The company recently created a new wholly-owned subsidiary known as Apple Energy LLC and filed an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates power companies, to be able to sell electricity and other power grid services to non-utility customers. The move is a strong sign that Apple will not only fulfill its plans to operate on 100 percent renewable energy through net-metering, but plans to generate and sell renewable energy back to the grid.

China's 13th Five-Year-Plan on Energy Development (Energy 13FYP) might be one of the most anticipated energy blueprints in the world for its far-reaching implications for the carbon trajectory of the planet's largest emitter. On Jan 5, 2017, the National Energy Administration finally unveiled the plan to reporters, with a set of 2020 targets covering everything from total energy consumption to installed wind energy capacity. Before we delve into details of the plan, one thing is worth noting: with the Energy 13FYP, China might have once again raised ambitions for its low-carbon future, highlighting the urgency that this smog-ridden country attaches to moving away from fossil fuels. This time round, policymakers seem even more determined to squeeze out coal's share in the country's energy mix, lowering its 2020 percentage in primary energy consumption from 62% to 58%. The country is also aiming higher for renewables: installed capacity of wind energy and solar energy should reach "more than 210GW" and "more than 110GW", respectively, by 2020; higher than what was declared at the end of 2014.

Unilever will work with NRG Energy to ensure that 100% of its U.S. energy needs are met through clean and renewable sources by 2020. Unilever already purchases renewable energy certificates to cover 100% of its U.S. electricity consumption, but will transition to direct renewable energy generation with the help of NRG.

Google has purchased an additional 842 MW of renewable energy capacity for its global data center operations, bringing the company's total renewable energy portfolio to 2 GW worldwide. The announcement marks the largest purchase of renewable energy by a non-utility company to date.

Corporations interested in sustainability have become a major driver in the renewable energy industry, said experts at the North American Energy Markets Association meeting in Florida last month. "There is about 15 GW of latent demand for renewables that wants to be built by 2020 in order to meet the targets of Fortune 500 companies that have committed to some degree of renewable energy in their supply portfolios," said Invenergy Vice President of Sales and Marketing Craig Gordon. 3M, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are among the companies seeking power purchase agreements with renewables in the US.

Corporations and governments intensified the renewable energy push last week. Six global companies joined RE100 with commitments to 100 percent renewable energy across their operations, coinciding with a government-led Corporate Sourcing of Renewables campaign that launched at the Seventh Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) in San Francisco.

IKEA wants to become a net exporter of renewables by 2020 and plans to spend another $670.5 million on renewable energy development. It currently sources 53% of its total electricity needs from renewables, controlling 314 turbines and 700,000 solar panels worldwide. The company will continue to embrace energy-efficiency measures, reduce supply chain emissions and make its products more sustainable.

BSR, Rocky Mountain Institute, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund created the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance, which combines the strengths of their respective programs to help corporations deploy an additional 60 GW of renewable energy capacity in the United States by 2025.

Rocky Mountain Institute launched the Business Renewables Center (BRC), a platform to advance corporate renewable energy procurement. The organization plans to use the platform to add 60 GW of solar and wind energy in the United States by 2025, which will nearly double current installed renewable energy capacity.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of a new renewable energy target requiring the European Union (EU) to source at least 32% renewable energy by 2030. The Parliament also voted in favor of increasing energy efficiency in the EU by 32.5% by 2030.

The U.S. will have to use a variety of renewable energy technologies, like offshore wind, to transition from a carbon-based energy economy to a renewable energy-based economy, according to Andrew Myers, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University. In the U.S., "offshore wind energy is a vast, largely untapped resource of renewable energy with enormous potential," said Myers. "[T]he potential resource is estimated to have a capacity close to the existing electricity capacity of the entire nation." CleanTechnica (8/5) 

The Rocky Mountain Institute's Business Renewables Center (BRC) is working together with RE100, led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, to accelerate the procurement of renewable energy by some of the world's most influential companies. The partnership aims to increase renewable demand (buyers), find renewable opportunities (developers and intermediaries), and provide the means to bridge the two through tools and knowledge.

The government of Quebec, Canada, has set a goal to export 60.9% of its installed renewable energy capacity to the US -- up from its current level of 46.6% -- by 2030. "With the most developed wind energy supply chain in Canada and the northeastern United States, Quebec's wind industry is in a good position to meet our continent's energy challenges," Canadian Wind Energy Association Vice President Jean-Francois Nolet said.

Renewables are expected to grow at a faster rate than previously thought and could account for 15% of global generation by 2035, according to BP. The report says wind, biofuels and other renewables are expected grow 6.6% annually. Renewables currently account for 3% of the world's energy mix, but that figure could climb to 9% within two decades. "The rate at which renewables gain share from 2020 to 2035 matches oil's gain over the 15 years of 1908-23," BP said.

A new report from the European Commission has concluded that wind power is the renewable energy technology with the largest and most successful deployment over the last 20 years.

Wind energy has been utilized more successfully than any other form of renewable energy for the past 20 years, according to the European Commission Joint Research Center. Over the past two decades, wind energy's global installed capacity has grown from 3 gigawatts to 370 GW, the report said. The U.S. added 131 megawatts of installed wind capacity in the first quarter of 2015 with 68 new turbines, the American Wind Energy Association said. 

China may lead the renewable energy race and is projected to add more renewable energy facilities than the combined efforts from the U.S., EU and Japan through 2035, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. The report also projected that the share of hydropower, biomass, wind and solar energy in the world's supply will surpass 30% in two decades. Advances in solar and wind power technology will help increase output in these sectors by 45%.

As an ever-expanding group of U.S. businesses commit to using more renewable energy to power their operations, a new study has found that for many companies, cost savings is the single most important reason for doing so. This is according to results of the first major survey of large electricity users since President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, conducted by SED Research. The Sept. 13 report, "Post-Paris: the State of Corporate Renewable Energy Sourcing," analyzes responses from executives at 94 companies and institutions, more than 40 of which are in the Fortune 500.

Developing nations invested $37.6 billion on renewable energy development in 2015, according to the World Bank. That renewables expenditure added up to 63% of all energy infrastructure spending in such countries last year, up from a five-year average of 44% and a 10-year average of 37%.

Despite efforts from Washington to sideline action on climate change, a growing number of Fortune 500 companies are taking increasingly ambitious steps to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, procure more renewable energy and reduce their energy bills through energy efficiency, according to a new report released today from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ceres, Calvert Research and Management (Calvert) and CDP.

The small country of Denmark is making a big commitment to renewables. Today Denmark's electric grid is over 40 percent renewably powered, and the country is aiming to reach 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035 and 100 percent renewable energy in all sectors by 2050.