PNC Signs Contract with Constellation to Provide Energy for Fifty Percent of Its Operations
PNC Bank has signed a 78 MW agreement with Constellation to power approximately half of its legacy operations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and portions of Illinois using clean electricity.
PNC Bank will acquire about 148 million kilowatt hours of energy per year through its retail arrangement with Constellation. This energy will be matched by Green-e Energy Certified Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from other US-based renewable energy projects.
Constellation has agreed to a separate long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) to acquire 78 megawatts of energy from Mammoth Central, the third and final phase of Doral Renewables LLC's Mammoth Solar project in Indiana. This arrangement is supported by PNC Bank's 15-year commitment.
According to PNC, the arrangement will lower its yearly carbon impact by more than 55,000 metric tonnes. Constellation Offsite Renewables (CORe) is a retail power product that connects customers to the economic and environmental benefits of large-scale, off-site renewable energy installations.
CORe is one of Constellation's products that helps customers achieve their carbon reduction goals by providing a chance to match their hourly power consumption with carbon-free energy produced locally.
PNC acquired around 150 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power in 2021, which was sufficient to cover 46 per cent of the company's purchased electricity demand. In addition, PNC has been pursuing ambitious, science-based environmental goals for lowering carbon emissions, energy consumption, and water use that were established in 2017.
PNC has decreased carbon emissions by 66%, energy use by 50%, and water consumption by 55% by implementing numerous energy, environmental, and real estate optimisation strategies. The corporation has prioritised the environmental performance of its buildings since 2000, recognising its top-performing structures through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Energy Star certification programmes.
A $28.1 million energy efficiency project at 15 buildings on the site of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland is one of the other recent projects on which Constellation has collaborated.
These upgrades are anticipated to cut NASA GSFC's yearly energy consumption by about 38 million kilowatt hours and carbon emissions by nearly 27,000 metric tonnes. As a result of the numerous campus improvements, NASA GSFC is predicted to save $1.8 million annually on energy costs and get $3.3 million in energy efficiency rebates.
It has also partnered with Microsoft to create a carbon accounting solution that provides customers with a better way to monitor their clean energy efforts, and Sheetz has entered into an agreement that will allow the chain to benefit from a platform that is based on the Constellation Offsite Renewables power product.
Source: Environmental Leader
