Amazon is world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy
Amazon continues to make progress on its goal of powering 100% of its operations with renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of the original target of 2030.
The company announced 37 new renewable energy projects around the world, increasing the capacity of its renewable energy portfolio by nearly 30%, from 12.2 gigawatts (GW) to 15.7 GW, and bringing the total number of renewable energy projects to 310 across 19 countries.
The additional 3.5 GW of clean energy capacity from these new projects extends Amazon’s leadership position as the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, and advances its efforts to meet The Climate Pledge, a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.
The 37 new projects announced today are located across the U.S., Spain, France, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. They vary in project type and size, with three new wind farms, 26 new solar farms, and eight new rooftop solar installations at its buildings around the world.
In the U.S., the new projects include Amazon’s largest renewable energy project (by capacity) announced to date, which is a 500 MW solar farm in Texas. The announcement also includes the company’s first renewable energy projects in Missouri.
“Given the growth of our business, and our mission to run 100% of Amazon’s operations on renewable energy, we aren’t slowing our renewable investments down,” said Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. “We now have 310 wind and solar projects across 19 countries, and are working hard to reach our goal of powering 100% of our business on renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original target of 2030.”
Amazon said it now has a total of 310 renewable energy projects, including 134 wind and solar farms and 176 rooftop solar projects. Once operational, the projects are expected to produce a combined 42,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable energy each year—enough electricity output to power 3.9 million U.S. homes annually.
The carbon-free energy generated by these projects will also help avoid 17.3 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, avoiding the equivalent of the annual emissions of more than 3.7 million cars in the U.S. each year.
Energy Storage
Amazon also continues to invest in renewable energy projects paired with energy storage. The energy storage systems allow Amazon to store clean energy produced by its solar projects and deploy it when solar energy is not available, such as in the evening hours, or during periods of high demand. This strengthens the climate impact of Amazon’s clean energy portfolio by enabling carbon-free electricity throughout more parts of the day.
The new projects include a 300-megawatt (MW) solar project paired with 150 MW of battery storage in Arizona and a 150 MW solar project paired with 75 MW of battery storage in California. Combined, the two projects double Amazon’s total announced solar paired with energy storage from 220 MW to 445 MW.
Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Pledge now has more than 300 signatories, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa. To reach its goal, Amazon will continue to reduce emissions across its operations by taking real business actions and establishing a path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy, five years ahead of the company’s original target of 2030.
Amazon is also delivering on its Shipment Zero vision to make all Amazon shipments net-zero carbon, with 50% net-zero carbon by 2030, and purchasing 100,000 electric delivery vehicles, the largest order ever of electric delivery vehicles. The company is also investing $2 billion in the development of decarbonizing services and solutions through the Climate Pledge Fund.