From Fossil Fuels to Renewables

As more and more businesses look to limit their carbon footprints with renewable power, oil and gas (O&G) companies are hoping to get into the game by expanding their businesses through diversification.

The trend seems to be led by European-based companies. For example, BP (British Petroleum) has plans to develop 320 Gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2025. French-based Total has set a target of 35 Gigawatts in the same time frame. These (and other) O&G giants are looking at a broad range of technologies from solar and wind power to battery storage, geothermal, hydrogen and carbon capture systems (CCS).

So what are they planning to do with all of this capacity? It appears that O&G is hoping to replace at least some of the capacity of traditional regional utilities by supplying electricity to large corporate users like Amazon and Microsoft. It’s hard to say where it will all end up, but like most things, it probably won’t be an “either/or” proposition. In a “both/and” world, there will be room for corporate giants as well as local producers. The key will be remaining agile enough to respond to customer demands.