BP Alternative Energy

BP Alternative Energy continues to invest in a sustainable and secure energy future – producing low-carbon fuels and power, while developing sustainable energy technologies.

BP made a commitment in 2005 to spend $8 billion over 10 years on alternative energy. We are investing at a faster pace than this, and at the end of 2011 we had invested approximately $7 billion, with more than $4 billion of that in the United States.

BP Alternative Energy focuses on those segments of the energy industry where we can profitably grow our business. This has led us to focus on wind and biofuels, businesses that are material, scalable, and suited to BP's core capabilities. We also invest in clean energy technologies to gain strategic insights on the advances occurring in this sector.

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Wind

BP Alternative Energy’s current wind fleet consists of 16 operational wind farms in nine states: Texas (4), Indiana (3), California (1), Colorado (2), South Dakota (1), Idaho (1), Kansas (2), Hawaii (1), and Pennsylvania (1). With more than 2,600 MW of gross wind generation capacity, our wind farms can provide enough clean electricity to power some 775,000 average American homes, sufficient to power a city the size of Houston, Texas.

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Biofuels

Since 2006, BP has committed more than $2 billion to biofuels research, development, and operations to respond to increasing energy demand and the need to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from transport fuels.

In 2007, BP selected the University of California Berkeley and its partners the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to join in a $500 million research program that is exploring how bioscience can be used to increase energy production and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment. The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) is performing ground-breaking research aimed at the production of new and cleaner energy, initially focusing on renewable biofuels for road transport. The EBI will also pursue bioscience-based research in three other key areas; the conversion of heavy hydrocarbons to clean fuels, improved recovery from existing oil and gas reservoirs, and carbon sequestration.

In San Diego, California, BP has created a Global Biofuels Technology Center, which develops cost-effective bioconversion technologies to produce cellulosic biofuels from perennial grasses. The technologies developed here are transferred to BP’s biofuels demonstration unit in Jennings, Louisiana, where they are validated and then integrated into a robust, scalable biofuels production process.

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Emerging Business and Ventures

Our Emerging Business & Ventures group aims to enhance long-term value for BP — both for its oil and gas assets as well as its low-carbon businesses — by developing sustainable energy solutions. It brings together BP’s venturing and carbon markets expertise with carbon capture and storage capability.

Our venturing investments span five broad areas: bio-energy and biomaterials; energy efficiency and storage; carbon management; renewable power; and oil and gas.

We have already committed more than $160 million to at least 50 companies and venture capital groups. By partnering with early- and growth-stage start-ups, the team accelerates the development of disruptive technologies for the BP Group. We have eight venturing professionals across the US, Europe, China and India.

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