UPDATED 16:15 EDT / APRIL 19 2021

INFRA

Amazon is now the top corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe

Amazon.com Inc. today revealed that it’s investing in nine large-scale wind and solar energy generation projects globally to advance its goal of switching entirely to green power by 2025.

The installations are located in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. Thanks to the last three investments, Amazon says, it’s now the single largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe, with more than 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity. That’s enough to power more than 2 million European homes a year.

The company is already the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy globally, a status it achieved last December, with an estimated 8.5 gigawatts of electricity at its disposal.

“With these nine new wind and solar projects, we have announced 206 renewable wind and solar projects worldwide, and we are now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally,” Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “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.”

In Spain, where Amazon already operates a large solar panel installation, the company is bringing two new solar projects online that together will add more than 170 megawatts to the power grid. In Sweden, the company is commissioning an onshore wind farm that will provide 258 gigawatts of renewable energy for its operations.

The biggest of the nine energy projects announced today was commissioned by Amazon to support its U.K. business. The company has bought the power generation capacity of a 350-megawatt wind farm off the coast of Scotland that is described as the largest installation of its kind in the region for Amazon. The investment also represents the biggest corporate renewable energy deal announced by any firm in the U.K. to date, Amazon said. 

Across the Atlantic, the company is embarking on another milestone project. Amazon has commissioned a solar energy facility in California that will be its first ever to feature an energy storage system. The facility generates 100 megawatts of energy, or enough to power about 28,000 homes for a year, and is capable of storing up to 70 megawatts at times when it produces more electricity than what Amazon can immediately put to use.

Amazon is also investing in multiple new wind and solar assets across Oklahoma and Ohio that, according to the company, will between them provide output of over 518 megawatts. 

Capping off the new investments is an 80-megawatt solar project in Alberta, Canada that marks Amazon’s first Canadian renewable energy project.

Fellow tech giants Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC are also in the process of fully switching their operations to renewable energy sources. Microsoft recently detailed the newest component of its plan to reduce its carbon emissions: an experimental data center cooling system that uses liquid with a boiling point significantly lower than water to remove heat from servers.

Photo: Amazon

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