We have said this for years, and after historic C&I growth in the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report 2017 Year-in-Review, and what will likely be historic growth in another upcoming report (hint hint), it really is true: Solar means business!

Last week, tech giant Microsoft announced a purchase of 315 megawatts (MW) of solar power from two utility-scale facilities in Virginia. This historic announcement marks the single largest corporate purchase of solar energy ever in the United States.

Renewable power developer sPower, also a member of SEIA’s Board of Directors, owns and operates the larger 500 MW project from which Microsoft is off-taking.

SEIA members, like sPower and the solar industry at large, are leading the way by offering energy that is very attractive for major U.S. companies, like Microsoft, to source from.

In our newly released Solar Market Insight report with GTM Research, we showed how the non-residential sector (commercial, industrial, community solar, etc.) grew 28 percent year-over-year, thanks in large part to American businesses investing in low-cost solar.

The top corporate solar users in the United States have installed more than 1 gigawatt of capacity. Fortune 500 companies across the country are installing onsite and offsite solar, and investing in credits from existing plants.

Next month, leaders from the commercial and industrial solar sector, as well as leading corporate end users, will gather in Boston at SEIA’s annual Solar Goes Corporate event. There, they will discuss and share insights on how businesses can procure, deploy and invest in solar energy, like Microsoft and thousands of other companies.

As Bloomberg recently wrote, solar is taking off in the Southeast, Virginia included, and where solar thrives, businesses invest. Microsoft just proved that by setting a record, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.