Amazon Becomes Largest Corporate Buyer of Renewable Energy

Amazon is advancing its own climate pledge to become CO2-neutral by 2040. 26 new large-scale wind and solar projects in Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, the USA, and the United Kingdom increase the number of Amazon’s energy projects. Amazon’s total investments in renewable energy to date will provide a power generation capacity of 6.5 gigawatts (GW). This is enough to supply 5.3 million households in Germany with electricity for a year.

(Seattle) Amazon today announced 26 new large-scale wind and solar projects with a total capacity of 3.4 gigawatts (GW). This brings the total investments in renewable energy in 2020 to a total of 35 projects and a capacity of over 4 GW. This is the largest investment by a company in renewable energy in a single year, making Amazon the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy overall.

18 Million MWh of Renewable Energy

Amazon has invested to date in wind and solar projects with a total capacity of 6.5 GW, enabling the company to power its operations annually with more than 18 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy. This is enough to supply 5.3 million households in Germany with electricity for a year. The projects will provide renewable energy for Amazon’s offices, logistics centers, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, supporting millions of customers around the world. They will also support Amazon’s goal of becoming CO2-neutral across the company by 2040. Part of this commitment is to operate Amazon’s operations with 100% renewable energy. The company is on track to achieve this milestone by 2025 – five years ahead of the original target of 2030.

(Corporate Power Purchase Agreement, CPPA) signed to source 250 megawatts (MW) of power from the planned 900-MW offshore wind farm Borkum Riffgrund 3 in the German North Sea. This is enough to supply 335,000 households in Germany with electricity for a year. This is the largest power purchase agreement of its kind for offshore wind in Europe.

Implementing the Paris Agreement 10 Years Earlier

Last year, Amazon and the organization Global Optimism jointly founded the Climate Pledge – a commitment to implement the Paris Climate Agreement ten years earlier and to be CO2-neutral by 2040. 31 companies have joined the Climate Pledge so far, including Henkel, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Siemens, and Unilever.

To achieve this goal, Amazon will continue to reduce emissions across all business areas. The company has embarked on a path to operate with 100% renewable energy across all business areas – already five years ahead of the original target of 2030. Additionally, Amazon has the “Shipment Zero” project, which aims to make the entire shipping process CO2-neutral – by 2030, this should apply to 50% of all shipments. Furthermore, Amazon is expanding its delivery fleet by 100,000 electric delivery vehicles – the largest order of electric delivery vehicles ever made. In Europe, an additional 1,800 electric delivery vehicles from Mercedes-Benz will be added, the largest such order from the manufacturer ever.

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