Amazon Signs 14 Renewable Energy Projects

Amazon continues to press ahead with its renewable energy goals after 14 new renewable energy projects in the US, Canada, Finland, and Spain.

The firm is seeking to beat its original goal to power 100 percent of its activities with renewable energy by 2030. Instead it wants to achieve this by 2025.

In April Amazon revealed it was the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy after it signed nine new wind and solar energy projects in the United States, Canada, the UK, Spain and Sweden.

Carbon neutral

Amazon it should be remembered pledged to be carbon neutral and meet the goals of the Paris accord by 2040.

CEO Jeff Bezos also said that Amazon will purchase 100,000 electric delivery vans from a start-up that his firm has invested in.

The e-commerce giant is currently the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally, with 232 projects around the world, enough to power 2.5 million US homes.

But this week Amazon announced 14 new renewable energy projects in the US, Canada, Finland, and Spain.

This new projects bring Amazon’s total renewable energy investments to date to 10 gigawatts (GW) of electricity production capacity.

Basically Amazon is utilising solar and wind projects to supply renewable energy for Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfilment centres, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres.

“We’re driving hard to fulfil The Climate Pledge – our commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Our investments in wind and solar energy in the US and around the world send a signal that investing in green technologies is the right thing to do for the planet and citizens – as well as for the long-term success of businesses of all sizes across all industries everywhere.”

Out of the 232 renewable energy projects globally Amazon utilises, it includes 85 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 147 solar rooftops on facilities and stores worldwide.

New projects

But the 14 new wind and solar projects located in the US, Canada, Finland, and Spain vary depending on the country.

In the United States, the 11 new projects include Amazon’s first solar projects in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, and additional projects in Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.

Amazon said that in total, it has enabled more than 6 GW of renewable energy in the US through 54 projects in total.

However Amazon’s largest renewable energy project is in Canada, where its second renewable energy project in Alberta is a 375-megawatt (MW) solar farm – which is also the largest in the country.

This will come online in 2022, and that solar farm will bring Amazon’s capacity in Canada to more than 1 million megawatt hours (MWh), enough to power more than 100,000 Canadian homes.

In Finland Amazon signed up to a 52-MW wind farm located near the country’s west coast. The project is expected to begin producing energy in 2022.

And finally Amazon has also made an additional investment in Spain.

This is Amazon’s fifth solar project in Spain and will generate 152 MW when it begins contributing power to the grid in 2023, bringing total capacity in the country to more than 520 MW.

Green strides

Amazon has certainly been making great strides in bolstering its green credentials.

In years gone past, the firm had clashed with environmental campaign group Greenpeace, which criticised the e-commerce giant numerous times over its use of coal powered sources.

But that is firmly in the past now, and since that time Amazon has been dramatically ramping up its renewable energy projects.