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The Business Renewables Centre of Canada says 2021 is already breaking records for corporate renewable energy deals and Alberta is leading the way. Every one of the deals to date this year means shovels in the ground for Alberta.

The BRC-Canada Deal Tracker 2021 Q2 Update is now available! 

In April, BRC-Canada launched its inaugural Deal Tracker, Canada’s first public curation capturing corporate procurement of renewable energy. At the time, deals announced in 2021 alone had already surpassed any previous year. Now, as a newly updated Deal Tracker is published at this year’s halfway mark, that record has been smashed again.

Here are the highlights for this quarter:

A big welcome to our new analyst Calvin Ng. Calvin holds a bachelor of commerce with a concentration in energy management from the University of Calgary. He previously worked at a solar installation company and then as a sustainability analyst with a procurement services provider, where he developed supply chain procurement road-maps combined with the UN Sustainable Development Goals to create a comprehensive database for industry-wide use.

“What we’re certainly seeing is strong, strong growth of solar in Alberta and corporate deals being behind that boom,” Rebecca Nadel, director of the Business Renewables Centre at the Pembina Institute told the Financial Post. “Almost 90 per cent of the operating solar that we have has a corporate deal behind it.”

Project to produce more than 195,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy

"Amazon's announcement … is the largest known solar virtual power purchase agreement in Canada. This transaction expands Amazon's leadership as a corporate buyer of renewable energy into Canada and is further evidence of the growth and viability of the Canadian renewables market," said Rebecca Nadel, director of the Business Renewables Centre, which is part of the Pembina Institute. 

Sara Hastings-Simon, director of the Pembina's Business Renewables Centre, says this is part of a trend. 

"We're talking about the practice of corporate institutions purchasing renewables to meet their own electricity demand. And this is a really well-established driver for renewable energy development in the U.S.," she said. "You may be hearing headlines like Google, Apple and others that are buying renewables and we're helping to bring this practice to Canada."

At a first-of-its-kind event in Calgary on Thursday, the members of 

“One of the question that always comes up is, ‘If solar and wind has gotten so cost competitive, then why don’t we see a ton of it being developed all over,’ and the challenge there is no longer a technological one but it’s a financing model one,” said Sara Hastings-Simon, director of Business Renewables Centre Canada.