AMAZON RENEWABLE INVESTMENT 1.4 GW
RENEWABLES NOW - April 20 - Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) on Monday unveiled a bunch of contracts for buying renewable electricity from nine wind and solar projects with a combined capacity of roughly 1.4 GW, to be built in Europe, the US and Canada.
The specific projects include a 350-MW offshore wind farm off the coast of Scotland, which is the e-commerce giant’s largest one in the UK and also the largest corporate renewable energy deal in the country. On the Old Continent, Amazon is also investing in over 170 MW of solar projects in the Spanish regions of Extremadura and Andalucia, while in Sweden, its newest project is a 258-MW onshore wind farm.
A project for a 100-MW solar farm with 70 MW of battery storage capacity has been announced in California’s Imperial Valley. Also in the US, Amazon will be procuring more than 400 MW of solar power from projects in Ohio plus 118 MW from a wind park in Oklahoma.
A first for the company is a project in Canada where it will use electricity from an 80-MW solar park in Alberta. The plant is set to generate over 195,000 MWh of electricity once operational.
“[..] we are now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO.
With the latest deals, Amazon has contracts with 206 renewable energy projects globally, including 71 utility-scale wind and solar and 135 rooftop photovoltaic (PV), for supplying its corporate offices, data and fulfilment centres and the Whole Foods Market stores. This corresponds to a total capacity of 8.5 GW, of which more than 2.5 GW is located in Europe alone.
Amazon is pursuing a company-wide goal to use 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years earlier than initially planned. Additionally, it has set a target of reaching net-zero carbon by 2040. The company noted that many parts of its business are already running on renewables power.
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