Amazon has announced 37 new renewable energy plans worldwide to help Amazon reach its goal of using 100% renewable energy in its global infrastructure by 2025, five years ahead of schedule. These plans increase the generation capacity of Amazon’s renewable energy portfolio from 12,200 megawatts to 15,700 megawatts, an increase of nearly 30%, to strengthen Amazon’s position as the world’s largest buyer of renewable energy and achieve the goals set in “The Climate Pledge,” And achieve net-zero emissions across all operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the target set in the Paris Agreement.
The 37 new projects announced by Amazon are distributed in the United States, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. Projects vary in type and size from country to country, including 3 wind farms, 26 solar farms, and 8 rooftop solar systems around the world. So far, Amazon has 310 renewable energy projects, including 134 wind and solar farms and 176 rooftop solar power systems.
All 310 Amazon projects combined 2are expected to generate 42,000GWh of renewable energy, enough to power 3.9 million U.S. homes each year. In addition, the zero-carbon energy produced by the new program will also reduce carbon emissions by 17.3 million metric tons per year, equivalent to reducing the carbon emissions of 3.7 million vehicles in the United States each year. Specifically, the renewable energy generated by the 310 projects will provide clean energy for Amazon's offices, fulfillment centers, and AWS data centers.
At the same time, Amazon has also continued to invest in renewable energy projects combined with energy storage systems. With the help of energy storage systems, the clean energy produced by solar energy projects can be stored at night when solar energy cannot generate electricity or during other periods of high demand. The new plans include a 300-megawatt solar project in Arizona (150 megawatts of battery storage capacity) and a 150-megawatt solar project in California (75 megawatts of battery storage capacity), which will increase Amazon's total planned solar energy storage capacity from 220 MW to 445 MW.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said its commitment to protecting the planet and reducing its environmental impact has propelled Amazon to become the world’s largest buyer of renewable energy in both 2020 and 2021. As operations grow, Amazon will continue to invest in renewable energy with a mission to use 100% renewable energy to support its operations.
At present, more than 300 companies have signed The Climate Pledge (TPC) jointly sponsored by Amazon in 2019, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, Pepsi, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa. In Taiwan, E Ink Holdings became the first company to sign on.
Amazon will achieve its goal five years earlier than the company originally planned by taking practical business actions to support its operations entirely with renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions from business operations. In addition, Amazon is committed to realizing the vision of "zero carbon emission transportation," expecting 50% of its shipments to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030, and purchasing 100,000 electric transport vehicles, which is also the largest electric transport vehicle order in history. In addition, Amazon announced a $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund to further develop decarbonization plans and solutions.
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