Today, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced four new renewable energy projects in Australia, Spain, Sweden, and the US that further support Amazon’s commitment to reach 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% renewable energy by 2030 on the path to net-zero carbon by 2040.
Amazon is investing globally to enable new renewable energy projects as the company works towards net zero carbon by 2040. Amazon’s first renewable energy project in Australia is a 60 megawatt (MW) solar project anticipated to come online in 2021 in northern New South Wales. Once complete, the project is expected to generate 142,000-megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy annually, which is equivalent to the annual electricity of almost 23,000 average Australian households.
Amazon’s newest renewable energy projects in Europe include 122 MW from an onshore wind project in Västernorrland, Sweden, expected to come online 2022, and a new 50 MW solar farm in Zaragoza, Spain, expected to begin operations in 2021. Once enabled, these projects have the capacity to power the equivalent of 158,000 average European homes each year.
Amazon’s newest solar project in the US will be located in Halifax County, Virginia. The 65 MW solar project is expected to generate over 150,000 MWh of renewable energy annually and will be Amazon’s 11th renewable energy project in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Separately, Amazon also recently announced a new solar project in Pittsylvania County that will power Amazon’s new HQ2 headquarters along with other Amazon-owned operations across the Commonwealth, including Whole Foods Markets and fulfillment centers. More information about the 82-megawatt project can be found on the Amazon Day One blog: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/sustainability/powering-hq2-with-100-renewable-energy.
Once complete, the four new Amazon renewable energy wind and solar projects will provide almost 300 MW and approximately 840,000 MWh of additional renewable capacity to the grids that supply energy to the company’s AWS data centers, which power Amazon and millions of AWS customers globally.
To date, Amazon has launched 26 utility-scale wind and solar renewable energy projects that will generate over 2,200 MW of renewable capacity and deliver more than 6.2 million MWh of clean energy annually – enough to power 560,000 U.S. homes. Amazon has also installed more than 50 solar rooftops on fulfillment centers and sort centers around the globe that generate 122 MW of renewable capacity and deliver 193,000 MWh of clean energy annually.
“We’re on a mission to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early as part of The Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040. These new renewable energy projects are part of our roadmap to 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% renewable energy by 2030,” said Kara Hurst, Vice President of Sustainability, Amazon. “In addition to the environmental benefits inherently associated with running applications in the cloud, investing in renewable energy is a critical step toward addressing our carbon footprint globally.”
“I applaud Amazon for their investment in renewable energy projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” said Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman. “This solar energy project will generate 65 megawatts of renewable energy, which will create clean jobs for the region.”
To track progress toward these goals, Amazon launched a website to report on its sustainability commitments, initiatives, and performance. The site includes information on Amazon’s carbon footprint and other sustainability metrics that share the progress the company is making towards reaching The Climate Pledge. The goals, commitments, investments, and programs build on Amazon’s long-term commitment to sustainability through existing innovative programs, including Shipment Zero – Amazon’s vision to make all shipments net-zero carbon, with 50% net zero carbon by 2030; sustainable packaging initiatives like Frustration-Free Packaging and Ship in Own Container, which have reduced packaging waste by 25% since 2015; renewable energy programs; investments in the circular economy with the Closed Loop Fund; and numerous other initiatives happening every day and led by teams across Amazon.
Visit https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/ to view the company’s new sustainability report and learn more.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About Amazon Web Services
For almost 14 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 175 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 69 Availability Zones (AZs) within 22 geographic regions, with announced plans for 16 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and Spain. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
(Image by Samuel Faber from Pixabay)
View source version on Business Wire:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200312005107/en/Amazon-Continues-Renewable-Energy-Investments-Wind-Solar