Monday 19 April 2021

Amazon becomes ‘Europe’s largest’ renewable energy buyer

Amazon has announced nine new utility-scale solar and wind projects, making it the 'largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe'.

It has built these projects in the UK, Spain and Sweden, with its European electricity capacity now standing at 2.5GW.

It has also invested in the USA and Canada, now owning 206 renewable energy projects worldwide, which will generate 8.5GW of electricity capacity.

It will use these renewable projects to power its offices, delivery centres, food shops and data centres. It believes these strides will help it achieve powering 100% of its activities with renewable energy by 2025.

These nine new projects include Amazon’s first solar project paired with energy storage, based in California’s Imperial Valley. They also include what it claims is the largest corporate renewable energy deal announced by any company in the UK to date; a 350MW wind farm off the coast of Scotland.

Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, stated: “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.

“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. 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.”