Amazon Announces 3 New Renewable Projects in US and UK

Amazon has announced 3 new renewable projects in the US and UK that support its commitment to reaching 80 percent renewable energy by 2024

Amazon has announced three new renewable energy projects in the US and UK that support its commitment to The Climate Pledge and reaching 80 percent renewable energy by 2024 and 100 percent renewable energy target by 2030 on its path to net-zero carbon by 2040.

The newest renewable energy project in Europe will be the largest corporate wind power purchase agreement (PPA) in the UK, located on the Kintyre Peninsula, Scotland. Once complete, the new Amazon Wind Farm will provide 50 MW of new renewable capacity with the expected generation of 168,000 MWh of clean energy annually, enough to power 46,000 UK homes.

The firms’ latest solar projects in the US will be located in Warren County, North Carolina, and Prince George County, Virginia. Together, the two projects with a total capacity of 215 MW are expected to generate 500,997 MWh of clean energy annually. This will be Amazon’s second renewable energy project in the state of North Carolina and the eighth renewable energy project in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Once complete, the three new Amazon renewable energy wind and solar projects will provide 265 MW of additional renewable capacity and are expected to begin producing energy in 2021, supplying energy to the company’s Amazon Web Services data centres, which power Amazon and millions of AWS customers globally.

To date, Amazon has launched 18 utility-scale wind and solar renewable energy projects that will generate over 1,600 MW of renewable capacity and deliver more than 4.6 million MWh of clean energy annually – enough to power 368,000 U.S. homes. Amazon has also installed more than 50 solar rooftops on fulfilment centres and sorting centres around the globe that generate 98 MW of renewable capacity and deliver 130,000 MWh of clean energy annually.

Kara Hurst, director of Sustainability at Amazon said that in addition to the environmental benefits inherently associated with running applications in the cloud, Amazon is committed to minimizing our carbon emissions and reaching 80 percent renewable energy use across the company by 2024.

“We’ve announced eight projects this year and have more projects on the horizon – and we’re committed to investing in renewable energy as a critical step toward addressing our carbon footprint globally. With nearly 70 renewable energy projects around the globe – including 54 solar rooftops – we are making significant progress towards reaching Amazon’s company-wide commitment to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2030,” she said.