Amazon has announced two new renewable energy projects, including a solar farm in Pittsylvania County, Virginia and a new wind farm planned in Cork, Ireland.
This will be Amazon’s second renewable energy project in Ireland and seventh in the state of Virginia; they're expected to produce approximately 168,000 MWh of clean energy annually to support Amazon’s goal to power 100% of its global operations with renewable energy. According to a press release, they are projected to begin producing energy sometime in 2020. Amazon says it will produce 45 megawatts of renewable energy capacity and the energy would be used to power the company's datacenters.
“Playing a significant role in helping to reduce the sources of human-induced climate change is an important commitment for Amazon,” said Kara Hurst, Director of Sustainability, in a statement. “Major investments in renewable energy are a critical step to address our carbon footprint globally. We will continue to invest in these projects, and look forward to additional investments this year and beyond.”
These new wind and solar farms represent the Seattle-based company's 65th and 66th renewable energy projects. According to Amazon, 50 of those are solar rooftop installations on warehouses: 32 in the US, 12 in the EU, and seven in India.
According to the company, its solar projects in the US have offset the CO2 equivalent of more than 200 million miles of truck deliveries. The company says its renewable energy projects are expected to generate 1,342 MW of renewable capacity globally.
In October 2017, Amazon opened its Wind Farm Texas, a 253 Megawatt wind farm in Scurry County, West Texas. Jeff Bezos christened the facility by smashing a champagne bottle on top of one of the turbines standing more than 300 feet tall. The project includes over 100 turbines that generate 1,000,000 megawatt hours of wind energy annually, enough to power 90,000 typical US homes.
"The solar industry has seen rapid growth in the United States, really over the past decade. So over the past 10 years, the average annual growth rate in the industry is 50% per year. So we've seen steady growth. Are we satisfied? No, we always want to see additional growth. Our key initiative right now is to pass an extension of the investment tax credit, which is a key federal tax credit in the United States and with that, we are hoping we can continue to see industries growth going forward," Shawn Rumery, director of research for the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), told Forbes.
"We do expect companies like Amazon and Apple and others to, quite frankly, continue to be vocal about their investments and to be vocal about the need for clean energy," Rumery added.
