Aggregating commercial and industrial demand to
scale investment in renewable energy
The Green Power Market Development Group (“GPMDG”) is a proven approach to building
demand for renewable energy from the commercial and industrial sectors. GPMDG works to
transform clean energy markets by scaling effective approaches for buying renewable
energy by industries and addressing market and policy barriers to the use of renewable
energy. This initiative helped spur procurement of renewable energy in the U.S., and played
a critical role in developing new financing models like the solar power purchase agreement
(PPA) that has improved that value that buyers of renewable energy get.
Since its launch, over 60 companies, including large corporate energy buyers, sellers,
technology providers, and financial institutions have engaged with the GPMDG. Companies
like ACC Cement, Coca Cola, Cognizant, IBM, Infosys, Philips among others, have been
deeply involved in discussions to procure renewable energy in India. The GPMDG is
supported by the World Economic Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance (G2A2), an alliance
of over 50 companies, public and private institutions and non-governmental organizations.
The History of the GPMDG
The Green Power Market Development Group was originally convened in 2000 in the US
as a commercial / industrial partnership, and its members included Alcoa Inc., Delphi
Corporation, The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, FedEx Kinko’s, General Motors, IBM,
Interface, Johnson & Johnson, NatureWorks LLC, Pitney Bowes, Staples, and Starbucks.
The group was convened to transform energy markets to help corporate consumers
diversify their energy portfolios with cost-competitive green power. The Green Power
Market Development Group – US developed 1,000 MW of new, green power by 2010.
Following this success, in 2005, WRI and The Climate Group convened the Green Power
Market Development Group- EU. Group partners included some of Europe’s largest
energy users from a variety of sectors such as British Telecom, Holcim, IKEA, Michelin,
Tetra Pak, and the European operations of The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, General
Motors, IBM, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, Nike (CSC), and Staples.
The Challenge
Despite initiatives to encourage generation and use of renewable power, and growing
procurement targets from multi-national companies, most buyers face barriers to procuring
renewable energy. These include:
 Companies do not have the capacity to explore approaches to buying renewable
energy and cannot invest sufficient time by themselves to learn about options
 Private demand and supply is very fragmented as companies are at different comfort
levels about renewable energy options
 Policy and regulatory barriers make renewable energy buying more expensive and
complex than it needs to be for buyers
 Suppliers and project developers report that transaction costs are high and project
development cycles are long as demand is not well coordinated
 Cost of financing remains high for renewable energy projects, creating an
opportunity for new financing approaches to drive down cost
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How to engage in this initiative
The Green Power Market Development Group invites participation from corporate energy
buyers, financiers, and policy makers to transform energy markets by:
1. Demonstrating self-sustaining business models for corporate buyers to access
reliable and renewable energy in developing countries at scale.
2. Fostering a network of companies, financiers, policy makers and other private sector
market facilitators that can rapidly scale renewable energy demand and financing
supply for these markets.
3. Sharing knowledge of best practices on renewable energy procurement, financing
models, and policy approaches to foster renewable energy business models.
4. Develop new enabling financing models and standardized power purchase
agreement templates that allow renewable energy transactions to get to scale.
The group aims to support the addition of over 500 MW in green energy by 2018 in India
and South Africa, by working with its network of leading industrial companies to test and
scale new procurement and financing models and raise awareness about supporting
enabling policy and regulatory frameworks.
Recent successful work in India
The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) officially
launched the Green Power Market Development Group in the Indian city of Bangalore on
the 9th of January, 2013. The GPMDG, after one year of operation, has already become the
go to place for companies, regulators, and utilities to have open and frank discussions on
approaches for scaling deployment of renewable energy. The GPMDG has held 5 meetings
in 2013, three of which were targeted at engaging buyers and sellers in discussions around
successful business models in the Indian ecosystem, and two of which encouraged
productive interaction between regulators and the private sector.
In addition to these meetings, the Green Power Market Development Group has facilitated
a collaborative procurement of rooftop PV across 5 companies in the greater Bangalore
area. This procurement project has aggregated roof space that can sustain up to 3 MW of
onsite PV installations – generating peak power right where it is needed and helping to
reduce costly back-up diesel generation. Bids have been received from 4 solar energy
developers, and negotiations will be complete by the end of January, 2014.
ABOUT WRI:
World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research
to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people's lives. Its mission is to move
human society to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to provide
for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. WRI provides -- and helps
other institutions provide -- objective information and practical proposals for policy and
institutional change that will foster environmentally sound, socially equitable development.
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