(Photo Credit: Wells Fargo)Wells Fargo signed a 10-year structured renewable energy agreement today with NRG Energy company Reliant for 62,000 megawatt-hours of annual solar energy. The deal, which Wells Fargo called its largest renewable energy purchase, is expected to power around 400 of the financial service company’s properties in Texas.
The energy will come from a new utility-scale solar facility in Texas that’s scheduled to break ground in 2020 and start delivering power to the grid in 2021, according to Wells Fargo. Under the plan, called Renewable Select, NRG agreed to provide 100% of the bank’s total annual requirements in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region and 3% of Wells Fargo’s national load.
In 2016, Wells Fargo set a two-part renewable energy goal. One was to meet 100% of global electricity requirements with renewable energy and energy products, which Wells Fargo says it has done since 2017 — mainly by purchasing renewable energy certificates.
The other target involves transitioning to more long-term electricity contracts and “significantly increase” the deployment of onsite generation to support the development of net-new sources of renewable energy by 2020.
“Transitioning from the purchase of renewable energy certificates to long-term contracts that fund new sources of renewable energy is a critical piece of Wells Fargo’s 2020 renewable energy goal,” said Richard Henderson, head of Wells Fargo’s Corporate Properties Group.
Currently Wells Fargo says it has solar arrays on 16 properties nationwide as well as on ATMs. The company also plans to install solar on more than 100 of its corporate, branch, and data facilities across the United States.
“Maximizing our onsite solar generation is a simple way to help reach our renewable energy goal while enhancing the value of our significant real estate portfolio,” Henderson added.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo committed to providing $200 billion in sustainable financing through 2030. In August, the company said it had provided $23 billion in financing during the first year of that commitment. Most of the funding in 2018 went toward low-carbon initiatives such as green buildings, renewable energy, and sustainable technologies.
