Large-load customers can help commercialize new clean energy technology: CEBA
Large-load customers can help commercialize new clean energy technology: CEBA
Publish Date: 2026-05-29 12:08:00
Source Domain: www.utilitydive.com
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Dive Brief:
- As large-load customers increasingly look to power their operations with new clean firm technologies like advanced geothermal and small modular nuclear reactors, clean energy tariffs, as well as bilateral customer-utility arrangements, are helping to commercialize and de-risk the deployment of these technologies, the Corporate Energy Buyers Association said in a May 21 report.
- “The goal is to try and get some of these technologies closer to commercialization, and then we’d see costs shift down, like we did with solar and wind,” lead report author Priya Barua, CEBA’s senior director of utility partnerships and innovation, told Utility Dive. “I think we’re in that phase with that next wave of technologies.”
- Clean energy tariffs “allow large customers to identify, fund, and support specific clean or clean firm resources,” the report said, “within existing regulatory frameworks, pairing customer-driven investment with strong ratepayer protections.”
Dive Insight:
Hyperscalers are spending aggressively on the AI race, including the construction of data centers and the energy needed to power them. The five largest hyperscalers — Google, Meta, Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft — are expected to cross $1 trillion in capital expenditures this year, according to venture capital and private equity firm Bessemer Venture Partners, and $8 trillion total between 2025 and 2031.
Those five companies also “represented 49% of all corporate clean energy [power purchase agreements] globally in 2025,” the CEBA report said, “with a growing share of investments in nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal.”
These investments include a PPA between Microsoft and…
