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Cisco Systems Buying Solar Power In N.C. Through Duke Energy Program

A second major technology company has confirmed that it is using Duke Energy’s Green Source Rider to provide clean energy for its North Carolina operations.

Published 8 years ago | About a 3 minute read

A second major technology company has confirmed that it is using Duke Energy’s Green Source Rider to provide clean energy for its North Carolina operations.

The Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) campus in the Research Triangle contracted with Duke to purchase power and renewable energy credits for two five-megawatt projects in Union County, just southeast of Charlotte.

“We have two major sustainability portions of our sustainability goals — a 40% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions and getting 25% of the power for our global operations from renewables,” says Theresa Perry, global energy and sustainability manager for Cisco.

Power from renewables is much easier to obtain from utilities in Europe than in the United States, she says. So Cisco was excited when Duke (NYSE:DUK) announced the Green Source Rider program in 2013.

First Adopter

Perry first disclosed Cisco’s participation in the program at the State Energy Conference in Raleigh last week, during a panel on “What Drives a Business to Adopt Solar.”

It took Duke longer than originally expected to get that program off the ground. But Cisco was actually the first company to sign up after the program was finally available, signing a contract with the Charlotte-based utility in November.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) was the first company to publicly announce its participation in the program. It signed a contract in November and announced it that same month. But Duke spokesman Randy Wheeless confirms that Cisco was the first company to complete its contract to buy power under the pilot program.

Wheeless says the company has a third contract in hand, but that customer has not yet announced its participation in the rider program, so Duke will not say who that customer is.

The Green Source Rider was designed to connect renewable energy producers in the state to major industrial customers who are willing to pay a negotiated price to buy clean energy.

Large Campus

The program is only available to provide power for new industrial customers or power needed for expansion projects for existing industrial customers.

That limited the amount of power Cisco could buy for its RTP operations to power needed for expansions since 2012.

The Cisco campus in North Carolina is the company’s second-largest in the United States and third-largest in the world. With 5,000 employees and 2,000 contract workers, it is behind only Cisco’s San Jose, Calif., headquarters and its campus in Bangalore, India.

Spreading the Benefits

Perry says Cisco’s participation in the rider program is part of its effort to buy renewable resources available close to its various operations. That benefits the communities they have operations in more directly since carbon emissions are reduced in the region.

“We aren’t looking for a big wind farm in Texas that we can buy all our energy from,” she says. “We have a strategy of buying some here and some there to spread the benefits.”

Wheeless says Duke remains in negotiations with a number of other potential Green Source Rider participants. He says the interest expressed in the program indicates that the pilot program is likely to be successful.

“This is an innovative example of how Duke Energy is developing renewable energy offers to meet the needs of our customers,” he says.