Image: Equinor
Global online shopping megalith Amazon has invested in nine new renewable energy projects in North America and Europe, making it the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world with 8.5GW.
Amazon announced on Monday that it had signed on with nine new utility-scale wind and solar projects located across the United States, Canada, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
This latest batch of renewable energy projects brings Amazon’s total tally of projects up to 206 renewable energy projects around the globe, including 71 utility-scale wind and solar projects, and 135 solar rooftops on facilities and stores worldwide.
“Amazon continues to scale up its investments in renewable energy as part of its effort to meet The Climate Pledge, our commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO said in a statement.
“We are now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally. Many parts of our business are already operating on renewable energy, and we expect to power all of Amazon with renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original target of 2030.”
The nine new renewable energy projects will supply clean electricity to Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfillment centres, Whole Foods Market stores, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres.
Amazon aims to purchase the equivalent of 100% of its electricity supply with renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of the company’s original 2030 target.
The nine new wind and solar projects announced by Amazon this week include the company’s first solar + storage project. Based in California’s Imperial Valley, the project consists of 100MW of solar energy and 70MW of energy storage.
There is also an 80MW solar project in Newell County, Alberta, and a 350MW wind farm off the coast of Scotland, the largest corporate renewable energy project in the United Kingdom,
A handful of new projects in the US were also announced, including Amazon’s first renewable energy project in Oklahoma with a 118MW wind farm located in Murray County, and new solar projects in Ohio’s Allen, Auglaize, and Licking counties which, when combined, amount to 400MW of new energy procurement.
Finally, Amazon also invested in a Spain solar project with a capacity of over 170MW, and an onshore wind project in northern Sweden with capacity of 258MW.
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