Beyond the Grid: Corporate Energy Strategy in an AI-Driven World
At the Global Decarbonization Forum 2026 - New York held during Climate Week NYC, Camorah King of the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) and Rukiye Altun of Hitachi joined a fireside chat on how companies are procuring clean energy in a rapidly changing market. The conversation addressed a shift many industrial companies are experiencing: energy is no longer just a utility bill. As electrification, manufacturing growth and AI drive up power demand, and grids struggle to keep pace, access to secure, affordable and clean electricity has become a strategic business question.
A More Demanding Procurement Market
CEBA brings together around 300 of the world's largest energy buyers and providers. It began more than a decade ago, when a dozen corporate leaders recognized that clean energy was not only important for sustainability, but also good for their bottom line.
Camorah outlined three trends shaping corporate procurement today. First, conditions have become more difficult. Globally, corporate clean energy procurement fell by around 10% last year for the first time. The US is the exception, with a record 27 gigawatts procured last year and 20 gigawatts already by July this year. But the market now requires more resources and expertise, so a smaller group of large buyers is procuring larger volumes. Second, demand for clean firm power is rising. In the US, companies have procured around 12 gigawatts of nuclear, geothermal and other always-available clean technologies, 70% of it in the past two years. Third, growing electricity demand from AI, electrification and manufacturing has created pressure for speed to power: companies want whatever resources can connect their new facilities fastest.
From Cheapest Power to Secure Power
Rukiye, who has worked in the energy sector for 20 years, described how the executive conversation has changed. Ten years ago, it focused on rates and efficiency. Today, CFOs and CEOs ask whether their power is secure, affordable, resilient and scalable as the business grows, and whether it is clean and traceable.
Resilience has become a key driver. Outages can disrupt production, delay deliveries and ripple through supply chains. Camorah shared that, for one semiconductor manufacturer, a single blip in power supply at a fab can cost millions. As a result, companies increasingly procure clean energy as part of their resilience strategy, not only to meet sustainability goals.
The grid itself is becoming the bottleneck. A new data center can be built in around 18 months, while new generation takes three to five years even for solar, and much longer for nuclear. Transmission is just as critical: Rukiye compared it to building a factory without a highway to supply it.
In response, utilities, large energy users and technology providers are forming new partnerships. These include clean energy tariffs that bring new firm or storage capacity to the grid without raising costs for other customers, as well as microgrids with on-site generation and long-duration storage.
Scope 3: Reevaluation, Not Retreat
For many companies, the biggest challenge lies in their supply chains. Much of their suppliers' production is located in markets where clean energy is difficult to procure, and largely outside the buyer's direct control.
Camorah addressed headlines suggesting that companies are walking back their climate commitments. In her experience, ambition is not declining. Instead, companies are reassessing their approach after discovering that some markets are far more complex than expected. That reassessment is driving new solutions. Companies are educating suppliers, aggregating demand with them and in some cases procuring clean energy on their behalf. A group of CEBA members launched the Clean Energy Procurement Academy, which trains suppliers in mainland China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam. Others are moving beyond unbundled certificates toward offsite projects with greater impact.
Rukiye added that sustainability is increasingly embedded in business strategy, especially as geopolitical disruption pushes companies toward more resilient and local supply chains. Customers in Asia-Pacific, in particular, increasingly require traceability for the materials they buy.
From Data to Decisions
Scope 3 emissions span thousands of materials and suppliers, which makes them difficult to quantify. Rukiye pointed to carbon management platforms such as carbmee as part of the growing toolbox available to companies. In her view, the challenge is not a lack of data. Utilities and companies already collect large volumes of it. The real question is what they do with it. Like a spreadsheet full of financial transactions, raw data creates little value on its own. It needs to be cleaned, completed where gaps exist, and connected to business workflows so companies can make better decisions.
AI can also help solve the problems it creates. Hitachi is working with the US grid operator SPP, together with NVIDIA, to use AI to combine load, generation and transmission studies. Scenario analysis that typically takes around 18 months can now be completed in days, which could significantly shorten interconnection timelines. Such collaboration will become increasingly important. Global data center electricity demand is expected to more than double between 2024 and 2030, from around 415 to 945 terawatt-hours, and that growth is concentrated in specific regions.
Energy as a Strategic Asset
The central message of the conversation was clear: clean energy procurement has become more complex, but the momentum behind it has not slowed. As Camorah noted, companies are entering a period of reevaluation and collaboration rather than retreat, and new solutions will follow.
Rukiye closed with two takeaways. Energy is now a strategic asset that every company must manage and optimize intelligently. And the next decade will not be defined by access to data or capital, but by access to energy and the ability to unlock the value of data.
