T-Mobile US has announced its intention this week to go 100% renewable electricity by 2021 and has backed its commitments by announcing a Power Purchase Agreement for 160 megawatts from the Solomon Forks Wind Project in Kansas.
Announced on Monday, T-Mobile US — the self-proclaimed “Un-carrier” of American telecommunications — revealed that it had set in place a commitment to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2021 and subsequently announced it had joined the 100% renewable electricity initiative RE100. T-Mobile also announced that it had secured a 160 MW (megawatt) Power Purchase Agreement from Infinity Renewables’ 474 MW Solomon Forks Wind Project in Kansas — joining Target as an off-taker from the Solomon Forks project.
The Solomon Forks Wind Project is expected to begin generating electricity in early 2019, but this is T-Mobile’s second PPA, following the company’s Agreement signed in April of 2017 to secure 160 MW from the 300 MW Red Dirt wind farm in Oklahoma, operated by Enel Green Power.
“It’s the Un-carrier way to do the right thing by our customers, and moving to renewable energy is just a natural part of that,” said John Legere, president and CEO at T-Mobile. “And it’s not just the right thing to do — it’s smart business! We expect to cut T-Mobile’s energy costs by around $100 million in the next 15 years thanks to this move. Imagine the awesome things we can do for our customers with that!”
T-Mobile will be focusing on securing its renewable electricity needs through wind PPAs in order to account for every unit of electricity the company consumers. Further, T-Mobile will only buy from projects that wouldn’t exist without the company’s involvement.
To formalzse its 100% renewable electricity commitment, T-Mobile also joined the 100% renewable electricity initiative RE100 — created by The Climate Group and CDP — joining companies like Nike, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
“It’s great to see T-Mobile US shifting to renewables for its power consumption,” said Sam Kimmins, Head of RE100 at The Climate Group. “As a large electricity consumer in the US, they can truly transform energy systems by bringing significant renewable capacity online — all of that while delivering real value to their customers. I congratulate them for a great commitment.”
Source: cleantechnica.com
