Corporate heavyweights are leaning on utility regulators in Virginia to give electricity customers more options to buy renewable energy.

Companies including Microsoft Corp., Walmart and Unilever on Nov. 8 asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission for "an explicit legal framework" to buy renewable energy from utilities or third-party sellers. With corporations increasingly setting internal sustainability or renewable energy goals and making decisions about where to locate or expand based, in part, on their ability to control energy costs and sources, the issue has implications for state economies, according to the business group Advanced Energy Economy, or AEE.

"Our ability to access power from renewable resources is essential to our corporate energy strategies," the companies said. "States that have expanded and opened access to renewable energy are particularly attractive to businesses — offering up a diversified energy system, improved air quality, and greater long-term price stability."

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