Tech Investments Are Powering Up Clean Energy
Spending on renewables is good for sustainability goals while being good PR. It’s also great for business.
Good deals.
Photographer: Daniel Rodrigues/Bloomberg
This week, my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Shira Ovide took a close look at U.S. tech company capital expenditures. Three years ago, Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc. spent $40 billion on big-ticket physical assets; last year, they invested $80 billion, putting them in the ranks of automakers, oil and gas companies, and telecoms in terms of capital expenditure outlays. How is tech driving capex in other sectors?
My Bloomberg NEF colleagues track the contracts private companies and the government sign with renewable-power generators to meet their electricity demand. Since 2010, they’ve signed agreements to buy nearly 18,000 megawatts from these generators of clean power. Tech companies are the biggest buyers; governments and universities are a distant second.