Amazon is to invest in a “major” Scottish offshore wind farm as it ramps up efforts to decarbonise its operations.
The announcement, part of a string of new global power purchase agreements (PPA), is the largest corporate renewable energy deal announcement made by any company in the UK to date, the technology giant said.
It’s not yet clear where precisely the wind farm will be located but a wind farm off east of Dundee is shown on Amazon’s website.
Amazon’s new wind farm in Scotland to be largest in UK
The site will generate 350 megawatts (MW) of power once operational and will become the firm’s largest PPA in the UK to date.
The development is one of nine new global utility-scale wind and solar energy projects Amazon is planning to invest in.
Amazon said the move means the company is now the “largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in Europe”, with more than 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity, enough to power more than two million European homes a year.
Clean energy is used to power Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfillment centers, Whole Foods Market stores and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers.
The Seattle-headquartered company is also aiming to produce enough renewable energy to cover the equivalent demand of its smart speaker Echo devices.
Amazon’s clean energy push
Amazon currently plans to power 100% of its activities with green energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original target.
Other renewable energy projects announced by Amazon today include a 100MW solar farm based in California, a 118MW onshore wind development located in Oklahoma and additional investments in green energy projects in Sweden and Spain.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, said: “Amazon continues to scale up its investments in renewable energy as part of its effort to meet the Climate Pledge, our commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040.
“With these nine new wind and solar projects, we have announced 206 renewable wind and solar projects worldwide, and we are now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally.
“Many parts of our business are already operating on renewable energy, and we expect to power all of Amazon with renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original target of 2030.”
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