Amazon goes public with record-breaking renewable energy generation plans

Amazon claims to be on course to become the largest ever corporate purchaser of renewable energy by delivering on its plans to add 26 wind and solar farms to its green energy site portfolio.

The additions to its wind and solar farm estate will be located in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the US, and will complement the 127 additional renewable energy projects it already has in operation across the world.

Bringing these additional facilities online means its electricity production capacity will increase by 3.4GW (gigawatts), and the total number of renewable energy projects it has invested in during 2020 will hit 35, the company has confirmed.

Coupled with some earlier investments it made on this front in 2020, this means the company will have – over the course of the past 12 months – bolstered its green energy production capacity by more than 4GW of power. This, it is claimed, marks the company out as having made the largest single-year corporate renewable energy investment of any firm in history.

As a result of all the renewable energy investments the company has made to date, it now has sufficient capacity to generate 6.5GW of sustainably sourced electricity, which is reportedly enough to power more than 1.7 million US homes for a year.

“We have now invested in 6.5GW of wind and solar projects that will enable the company to supply its operations with more than 18 million megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually,” the company said in a statement, announcing the move.

“With 127 solar and wind projects, Amazon is now the biggest corporate buyer of renewable energy ever. We are on a path to running 100% of our business on renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of our original target”

As such, the renewable power will be used to power Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfilment centres and the datacentres that are used to host the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud platform, as the company works towards its goal to generate net-zero carbon emissions across its business by 2040.

This is in line with the company’s other concurrent pledge to work towards having Amazon’s infrastructure powered exclusively by renewable energy sources by 2025, which is five years earlier than the target it was originally working towards.

In 2019, Amazon also co-founded The Climate Pledge, which calls for companies across the world to make a commitment to becoming net-zero carbon by 2040 and – in doing so – meet the aims of the United Nations-backed climate change-tackling Paris Agreement 10 years ahead of schedule.

“Amazon is helping fight climate change by moving quickly to power our businesses with renewable energy,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

“With a total of 127 solar and wind projects, Amazon is now the biggest corporate buyer of renewable energy ever. We are on a path to running 100% of our business on renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of our original target of 2030.”

“This is just one of the many steps we’re taking that will help us meet our Climate Pledge. I couldn’t be more proud of all the teams across Amazon that continue to work hard, smart and fast to get these projects up and running,” he added.