ACCIONA is the world’s greenest power utility for the sixth year running

• Since 2015 the company has headed the Top 100 Green Utilities ranking, put together by consultancy group Energy Intelligence, which rates one hundred electricity companies based on their CO₂ emissions and installed renewables capacity

For yet another year, ACCIONA has reconfirmed its position as the “greenest” power utility in the world. The company has held this position since 2015 in the “New Energy Top 100 Green Utilities ranking, published yearly by Energy Intelligence, an independent consultancy that specializes in energy markets.

The ranking, which has just published its ninth edition, selects one hundred of the world’s top electricity generation companies each year and classifies them based on their CO₂ emissions and installed renewables capacity (excluding hydro) to determine their level of involvement in the transition to a low-carbon electric power system.

ACCIONA has claimed the top spot in Energy Intelligence’s classification this year, given its reputation as an independent operator that works exclusively in renewable energies and is, therefore, carbon neutral.

The growing role of independent producers such as ACCIONA, which specialize in clean energies, as well as the gradual decarbonization of conventional electric power companies, explain why average emissions from the companies in the ranking has fallen to 425 kg of CO₂ per MWh generated from 565 kg/MWh in 2011, the year in which the first edition was launched.

Throughout the past year, the companies included in the Top 100 Green utilities list installed 56GW of combined solar energy, wind power and hydraulics. This capacity represents 70% of the overall new capacity added by the firms.

The 100 companies that make up the ranking total 3,187 gigawatts (GW) and represent around 45% of electricity generation capacity worldwide. European firms have a majority presence in the Top 10 with six companies, plus three from China and one from the US. After ACCIONA, the greenest utilities are Iberdrola (Spain), China General Nuclear, E.On (Germany), Orsted (Denmark), NextEraEnergy (US), China Three Gorges, EDP (Portugal), China National Nuclear Corp and Enel (Italy).

While the European utilities managed to reduce their fossil fuel assets by 20GW last year, Chinese, Asian and Middle Eastern companies increased their fossil generation assets by 41GW. That makes Chinese companies the most carbon-intensive (621 kg/MW), compared to 208 kg/MW for European companies (-17%).