Dive Brief:
- The political stalemate in Washington, D.C., has prompted David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy, the largest independent power producer in the U.S., to call on corporate America to provide leadership on clean energy.
- Crane held up Apple and Coca Cola's energy efficiency and green initiatives as examples of how private companies can help drive clean energy investment.
- “The resources that corporate America has at its disposal are amazing,” he said. “We need a bottom-up revolution.”
Dive Insight:
“Who are we going to look to lead on this?” Crane asked. “For the first time in American history, could we have a social movement that’s actually triggered by corporations?”
Although NRG Energy gets about 90% of its revenue from electricity sales that come from traditional resources such as coal and natural gas, the company is quickly moving to incorporate utility-scale renewables and distributed energy resources among its offerings.
Crane sees Google, which has been increasingly moving into the energy sector, and Home Depot, which sells rooftop solar systems, as the two potentially biggest competitors for NRG Energy and the utility industry. Generation could become “so distributed and so simplified that our biggest competitor becomes Home Depot," he said.