Watershed partners with Ever.green to bring new solar plant to Texas grid in first VPPA

Watershed, the leading enterprise climate platform, today announced it is partnering with renewables marketplace Ever.green to launch the first fixed-price virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA). The long-term commitments of Watershed customers including Samsara, Stripe, and TaskUs will help build a new solar plant in Laredo, Texas.

The solar plant enabled by this VPPA is located for maximum climate impact. Texas’ grid has high emissions intensity owing to a reliance on coal and gas, meaning Watershed customers will have a greater carbon reduction impact for their dollars. The solar energy produced by this plant means over 13,000 tons of CO2 will be avoided every year—equivalent to taking nearly 3,000 gas-powered cars off the road each year. This partnership is a blueprint for many more projects of its kind funded collectively by Watershed customers. 

“We’re working with Ever.green to develop the tools that will launch us into the climate economy by enabling meaningful climate action by companies of all sizes. This fixed-price VPPA lets Watershed customers lock in years of renewable energy production that would not exist without their commitments,” said Watershed co-founder Taylor Francis. “What’s more, as corporate offsetting comes under intensified regulatory and media scrutiny, VPPA customers will have assurance that they're funding only the highest-quality projects.”

Traditional VPPAs place the financial risk of volatile electricity prices with the buyers, which limits accessibility to the largest corporations that have dedicated teams, a deep understanding of power markets, and the ability to make long-term financial commitments. The new fixed-price VPPA developed by Watershed and Ever.green is a simpler structure that allows companies to fix their long-term costs. This eliminates exposure to the volatile pricing inherent to a traditional VPPA, while still increasing a project’s likelihood of full financing by lowering the overall financial risk.

The project is additionally supported by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and is an early example of how the IRA’s tax credits will help accelerate the transition to the climate economy.

“This is the gold standard for addressing scope 2 emissions. The RECs obtained through a VPPA represent clean energy from a project that happened because of their purchase: true additionality,” said Ever.green co-founder, Michael Leggett. “As the world’s leading companies double down on ambitious climate goals, we’re making it easy for any company, regardless of size or sector, to fulfill those commitments toward a clean grid.”

"We at TaskUs take our sustainability with the utmost seriousness, as with the understanding that every action we do as a company will have an impact on the environment, our society, and the future,” said Jon Wouters, TaskUs' Division Vice President of Global Facilities, Growth, and Sustainability. “Working with Watershed helped us envision our long-term Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals at a much quicker pace, and we are excited to see the positive impact of this collaboration.”

Watershed continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in corporate climate action, enabling ever-more-impactful reductions and removals for customers. The partnership with Ever.green follows Watershed’s first-of-its-kind partnership with Frontier, which broadens access to climate-critical permanent carbon removal technologies by enabling buy-in for Watershed customers at a wide range of commitment sizes.

Ever.green enables businesses of all sizes to join the renewable energy movement, by helping companies big and small fund new solar projects through long-term contracts for Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and a marketplace for transferable clean energy tax credits. Ever.green’s founders, Cris Eugster and Michael Leggett, and their team of energy, regulatory, and product experts are dedicated to accelerating the transition to renewable energy by bringing new capital to the table. For more on Ever.green’s portfolio of products, visit https://ever.green.

Press contact: Amelia Penniman (amelia@watershed.com)