Amazon signs biggest corporate solar PPA in Australia with Suntop project

Global online shopping giant Amazon has revealed that its previously announced contract to buy 105MW of output from an un-named Australia solar farm is with the 150MW Suntop facility in New South Wales.

Amazon announced in May that it would “build” a 105MW solar farm in NSW as part of a global commitment to build five large scale renewable projects in Australia, China and the US.

Amazon has pledged to power its operations with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, reach net zero emissions by 2040, and CEO Jeff Bezos has also pledge $US10 billion to a establish a new fund to support climate change efforts.

The company did not reveal the name of the Australia solar project at the time of last month’s announcement, but it has since identified it in a map published on its web-sites that names the bulk of its renewable energy projects.

The deal with Suntop solar farm – located about 10km from Wellington in the state’s central west region, is believed to be one of, if not the biggest, single power purchase agreements between a corporate customer and a solar farm in Australia. (Some bigger contracts, such as that signed by Neoen and CleanCo for the Western Downs solar project in Queensland are between developers and energy retailers).

Suntop, being developed by Canadian Solar, will in fact have a capacity of 150MW (ac), and will sell just over two thirds of its output to Amazon. It was first announced in late 2018 when Photon Energy held a 25 per cent stake in the project, since sold to Canadian Solar. Photon is still looking to develop a bigger project next door, known as Suntop 2.

It is the second deal struck between Canadian Solar and Amazon following the announcement that Amazon would buy 60MW of output from in Canadian Solar’s  110 MW (ac) Gunnedah solar farm, also in New South Wales.

The five new renewable energy projects announced by Amazon in May added a total of 615MW of contracted capacity, or around 1.2 million megawatt hours of additional renewable output, to help power its retail operations and data centres.

In total, it has announced 31 utility-scale wind and solar renewable energy projects and 60 solar rooftop installations on its centres across the globe, with a total of more more than 2,900MW of contracted and installed capacity and more than 7.6 million MWh of renewable energy a yea.