Green Power Market Development Group: Europe (GPMDG-EU)

Convened by WRI in collaboration with The Climate Group in 2005, the Green Power Market Development Group-Europe is a unique corporate renewable energy “buyers group” dedicated to building commercial and industrial demand and markets for renewable energy in Europe.

The Group seeks to:

• demonstrate the business case for corporate use of renewable energy,
• evaluate and deploy a variety of renewable energy technologies, and
• develop the marketplace to take green power to scale in Europe.

Group partners are some of Europe’s largest energy users from a variety of sectors and include 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.

Modeled upon the successes of WRI’s U.S. Green Power Group, this project is tailored to address barriers currently preventing widespread commercial and industrial adoption of renewable energy in Europe, such as:

• Misconceptions and lack of technical understanding of renewable energy technologies among corporate energy managers
• Few project financing approaches and successful on-site implementation strategies available
• Unclear business case for switching to renewables
• Incentives that target only utilities (e.g., feed in tariffs) but not large non-utility companies, many of whom generate electricity and thermal energy themselves for their own consumption.

By addressing these barriers, the Group will contribute to WRI’s International Climate Objective. For this objective to be achieved, it is critical that the European Union maintain leadership developing and garnering support for international climate policies. Recently, however, the EU has encountered challenges to its ability to fulfill its own climate change commitments. Carbon prices have been higher than originally forecasted and many Member States are falling behind on meeting their renewable energy targets. These hiccups could threaten EU support for and leadership in international climate agreements in the future. By demonstrating to major European corporations that switching to renewable energy is technically viable and economically sound, the Group will play a role in reassuring and strengthening Europe’s ability to lead on climate change.