Green Peak Energy and Energy Ease partner up to make green energy PPAs easy

Green Peak Energy and Energy Ease are joining forces to offer a new form of commercial Solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). This new Energy Ease PPA is designed to make solar more accessible to large and enterprise customers.

Some thought that dropping wholesale power prices would mean a slowdown in solar uptake across the commercial and industrial sectors (C&I), however, if anything, the benefits of solar and the unprecedented time of stress is encouraging more C&I solar uptake as companies look to take energy control. For instance, only yesterday McCain Foods announced Australia’s biggest behind-the-meter solar installation at its production plant in Ballarat. 

Recognising this growing appetite for on-site solar and PPAs, Energy Ease and Green Peak Energy decided to join together so as to create a gold standard PPA. “We are thrilled to be partnering with a team of experts who have deep experience in retail energy and infrastructure,” said Energy Ease CEO, Guy Olian. 

“The Energy Ease PPA itself is flexible,” continued Olian, “being suited to both building owners and tenants – and can be structured to suit a multi-tenanted building. Distinctively, Energy Ease PPAs can cover up to 30-year terms. This allows us to deliver some of the most compelling c/kWh rates.” 

Green Peak Energy CEO, Gavin Lewis, noted that the Energy Ease PPA provides all the benefits of Green Peak Energy’s traditional PPA, but “with the added bonus of a single point of contact for all your energy financing needs.” 

This partnership takes Green Peak Energy and Energy Ease to the next level, putting them at the forefront of solar PPA providing in Australia. A solar PPA one stop shop makes a solar PPA for a large company or enterprise that much easier to engage. This is especially important as enormous quantities of solar, wind and battery storage projects remain congested in the pipeline or awaiting a buyer, and whilst infrastructural upgrades are slow, all it takes to make solar PPAs more accessible to big business is a bit of business acumen itself. 

According to the Business Renewables Centre Australia (BRC-A), Australia had a late start in Corporate Renewable PPAs, but the market has rapidly evolved, partly due to innovations in firming and demand response, but also on the retail side thanks to partnerships such as that of Green Peak Energy and Energy Ease. 

As of December 2019, 70 leading Australian organisations have already made the switch to renewable energy and procured nearly 2.3 GW of mostly solar and wind electricity, supporting 5.2 GW of project development. 

According to the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA), Australia has a ‘medium’ level of interest in attracting large C&I energy buyers interested in procuring renewable energy. This is largely due to policy uncertainty at the federal level. As Chris Biggs of BRC-A notes, “…Australia does not have an effective integration of energy and climate policy, and grid connection and transmission issues.” 

Thankfully, the enterprising private sector and the ambition of state governments means that investor confidence hasn’t completely dried up. In fact, the Clean Energy Council’s (CEC) most recent Clean Energy Outlook – Confidence Index shows that despite the continuance of federal policy ambiguity, and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, investor confidence is up across both small and large-scale renewables.