Amazon announces its largest single renewable energy project yet

On December 10, 2020, Amazon became the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, and we continue to move quickly to power our operations with 100% renewable energy. When we launched the Climate Pledge, Amazon set a goal to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030. We now believe we are on a path to reach this goal by 2025.

Our latest renewable energy investment, the Amazon-Shell HKN Offshore Wind Project, is Amazon’s largest single-site renewable energy project to date.

The offshore wind farm is operated by the Crosswind Consortium, a joint venture between energy companies Shell and Eneco. It is scheduled for operation by 2024 and will have an overall capacity of 759 megawatts (MW) that will supply the electrical grid powering the Netherlands without government subsidies. Amazon is purchasing over 50 percent of that capacity, a total of 380 MW, to power our operations in Europe. Our investment further enables the development of this large-scale, innovative wind project.

Our collaboration combines Amazon's scale with the innovation of the Crosswind Consortium. In this project, the Consortium has proposed a number of unique innovations for the wind farm including technology demonstrations that could be implemented at full scale in the future. These include a floating solar park, short-term battery storage, optimally tuned turbines, and ‘green hydrogen’ made by electrolysis as a further storage technique. In addition, this project offers the opportunity to demonstrate the combination of these measures to ensure a continuous power supply regardless of wind conditions.

In 2019, Amazon and Global Optimism co-founded The Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach the Paris Agreement 10 years early and be net-zero carbon by 2040.

Significant investments in renewable energy are a critical step to reduce Amazon’s carbon footprint globally. With 187 solar and wind projects worldwide, Amazon is the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy. These projects have the capacity to generate over 6.9 GW and deliver more than 20 million MWh of energy annually. They include 62 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 125 solar rooftops on fulfillment centers and sort centers around the globe.

Across Europe, these investments include 20 solar rooftops atop Amazon fulfillment centers and 16 utility-scale wind and solar projects in Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden. This is Amazon’s second offshore wind project.

Other clean energy investments include the new Tallaght District Heating Scheme near Dublin, Ireland, which will provide heat recycled from the recently-completed AWS data centre to public sector, residential, and commercial customers.

In the UK, last year Amazon also unveiled the largest solar panel installation on any Amazon site across Europe. Equivalent to 28 football pitches, the building has been fitted with more than 11,500 module solar panels which generate enough electricity to power 700 homes for one year.