The development and deployment of new clean energy technologies will be critical to driving grid decarbonization and achieving the Clean Energy Buyers Association’s (CEBA) aspiration of a 90% carbon-free U.S. electricity system by 2030. 

Energy customers are seeking innovative technologies to help  meet impactful sustainability goals, they are ill-equipped to evaluate the benefits and risks associated with implementing new technologies within their business operations. 

At the same time, clean energy technologies need validation from energy customers to successfully cross the commercialization valley of death and become scalable commercial products. Energy customers can support early-stage technologies through demonstrations and showing proof of concept, however, many energy customers are unfamiliar with the cleantech ecosystem and even experienced customers encounter challenges when evaluating benefits and risks associated with emerging technologies to go to market and become successful, scalable commercial products. 

Recently CEBA hosted a clean tech webinar series where energy customers convened to uncover common barriers and challenges in deploying new clean energy technologies and collaborate on viable solutions. The lessons learned from the workshop proved that energy customers are uniquely positioned to expedite the execution of these next generation technologies by testing them in real-world market conditions and providing critical demand-side feedback. 

Three key action areas for building a strong business case for clean technology deployment emerged from the workshops: 

• establishing support with leadership and internal stakeholders
• identifying the most promising technologies with the greatest potential
• demonstrating financial affordability and return on investment

CEBA members interested in learning more can go to CEBA Interconnect to access member-exclusive resources, including Building a Business Case for Deploying Clean Energy Technologies Primer. Not a member? Learn more about CEBA membership options. For more information about CEBA’s Clean Tech initiative, email innovation@cebuyers.org.