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Amazon Confirms Another Three Renewable Projects

  • Publish Date: Posted almost 5 years ago
  • Author: Steve Walia

Amazon has taken further steps to cement its position as a low-carbon business by investing in three new wind farms located in the USA, Sweden and Ireland.

The new projects will together produce over 670,000 MWh each year, which equates to the total demand from a large city.

Amazon will purchase all of the clean energy produced by a 91 MW wind project in Ireland's Donegal, which will go into production by December 2021. This will be taken forward by Invis Energy, and it will become Ireland’s first non-subsidised wind power project.

In Sweden, the tech giant will purchase 91 MW of clean energy capacity from a new wind development in the region of Backhammer, and this project will go live next year. Last but not least, California's new development in the Tehachapi Mountains will generate 47 MW of wind energy.

Peter DeSantis, the VP of Global Infrastructure at Amazon, said that each of the wind energy developments would help Amazon to move towards its ultimate aim of powering its business with 100% clean and green renewable energy.

Last year, it managed to run its global infrastructure with over 50% clean energy for the first time on record. It has also been able to support 53 wind energy projects across the world. However, Amazon does receive criticism from green groups for continuing to use fossil fuel, and it has yet to deliver detailed plans for its ambition of total decarbonisation.

Greenpeace said that Amazon had abandoned its earlier plans to decarbonise, unlike other tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Apple, which have published detailed progress reports to back up their plans to be 100% powered by renewables. 

The latest news on Amazon's wind investments may pacify critics, however, and demonstrate the company's true green intentions.