E-commerce giant Amazon has announced its plan to develop five new renewable energy projects in China, Australia, and the U.S.
This latest initiative is a part of Amazon’s commitment to achieving 80% of its power requirements by renewable energy by 2024 and net-zero carbon target by 2040.
Amazon has announced that it was planning to make 50% of all of its shipments with net-zero carbon by 2030. The company plans on achieving this goal by leveraging renewable energy, biofuels, and reusable packaging. The company calls this initiative “Shipment Zero.”
Amazon is planning to develop a 100 MW solar energy project in the Shandong province of China. Once complete, the project will produce 128,000 MWh of solar power annually.
The second on the list is a 105 MW solar project in New South Wales in Australia, which is expected to generate 250,000 MWh of clean energy once complete. The energy generated will be sufficient to power 40,000 average homes in Australia.
The company is also planning to develop two projects of 200 MW and 80 MW in Ohio, and another 130 MW project in Virginia in the United States. The three projects together will generate power enough to cover 69,000 homes in the U.S.
Speaking on this latest development, Kara Hurst, vice president of sustainability at Amazon, said, “As a signatory to ‘The Climate Pledge,’ we’re committed to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement 10 years early and reaching net-zero carbon across Amazon by 2040. These five new renewable energy projects are a critical part of our roadmap to reach this goal. We believe it is possible to reach 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the goals we announced last fall. While this will be challenging, we have a credible plan to get there.”
The projects with a total capacity of 615 MW, once complete, will provide 1.2 MWh of renewable energy to the company’s fulfillment network and Amazon Web Service data centers.
Currently, Amazon has announced 31 utility-scale solar and wind projects and 60 rooftop solar projects on fulfillment centers and sort centers across the globe. Together, these projects will generate nearly 2.9 GW of renewable power.
In January this year, Amazon India announced that its fleet of delivery vehicles in the country would include 10,000 electric vehicles by 2025. The fleet will include three-wheeler and four-wheeler electric vehicles which have been designed and manufactured in India. In 2020, these vehicles will operate in over 20 cities, including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, and Coimbatore, to name a few, and this number will continue to grow.
In June 2018, Mercom had reported that Amazon India was planning to set up 8,000 kW of rooftop solar installations at its fulfillment centers and sorting facilities across the country. The company has also installed solar energy systems in four Amazon Care Community and Resource Centres in Haryana to provide solar power and support its community programs.
