Two more NSW solar farms start sending power to the grid – and Amazon

Two New South Wales solar farms contracted to help decarbonise the Australian power supply of global online retail giant Amazon have begun delivering energy to the grid.

The two Canadian Solar projects – the 189MW Suntop solar farm south of Dubbo and the 154MW Gunnedah solar farm west of Tamworth – were named by Amazon on Wednesday as the first of its Australian renewable investments to have reached commercial operation.

Suntop, located about 10km from Wellington in the NSW central west has a long term contract for two thirds of its output with Amazon, a deal that, at the time, was hailed as the biggest corporate power purchase agreement signed with a solar farm in Australia.

The Suntop deal followed the March 2020 PPA with Gunnedah, in which Amazon signed up to buy 60MW of output from the  110MW Canadian Solar project.

Later that same year, Amazon signed a third Australian PPA, this time with the 96.6MW Hawkesdale wind farm, being built by Global Power Generation on the outskirts of the Victorian Western District town of the same name.

Combined, the three Australian renewable energy projects are expected to generate 717,000MWh of renewable energy annually for Amazon. Gunnedah and Suntop will contribute more than half of that amount.

In a statement, Amazon said the two projects were helping it to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy across its global operations by 2025, five years ahead of its original goal of 2030.

“Amazon has a goal to power our operations with renewable energy by 2030, and we’re on a path to achieve this by 2025,” said Rianne van Veldhuizen, managing director of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Australia and New Zealand.

“Since I have joined the AWS Australia and New Zealand team, I’ve seen first-hand how our focus on renewable energy and sustainability is contributing to lasting, positive change across the industry, while helping our customers and partners to transform their industries.”