Amazon readies plan for 100% dependence on renewable energy by 2025

As part of its road map to achieve 100 per cent dependence on renewable energy by 2025, Amazon on Wednesday announced its first utility-scale renewable energy projects in India — three solar farms located in Rajasthan.

These include a 210-megawatt (Mw) project to be developed by India-based developer ReNew Power, a 100 Mw project to be developed by local developer Amp Energy India, and a 110 Mw project to be developed by Brookfield Renewable Partners.

By the end of 2021, the company had reached 85 per cent renewable energy across its business.

Amazon also announced 23 new solar rooftop projects at its fulfillment centres across 14 cities in India, which have the capacity to generate an additional 4.09 Mw of renewable energy.

This brings the total number of solar rooftop projects in India to 41 with 19.7 Mw of renewable energy capacity, which will contribute to powering Amazon’s fulfillment network in India, said Abhinav Singh, director, customer fulfillment, supply chain, and transportation services, Amazon India.

Amazon also announced it was expanding its renewable energy portfolio globally, with an additional 2.7 gigawatt (Gw) of clean energy capacity across 71 new renewable energy projects.

This includes the company’s first renewable energy project in South America — a solar farm in Brazil — and its first solar farm in Poland.

Once fully operational, Amazon’s global renewable energy portfolio will generate 50,000 gigawatt hours of clean energy, which is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power 4.6 million US homes each year.

The three solar farms in India will have a total capacity to generate 1076,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy per year, enough to power over 360,000 average-sized households in New Delhi annually.

“We are bringing new wind and solar projects online to power our offices, fulfillment centres, data centres, and stores… We are on the path to reaching 100 per cent renewable energy across our entire business by 2025,” said Adam Selipsky, chief executive officer (CEO), Amazon Web Services.

Amazon’s project with ReNew is a 210 Mw solar farm in Rajasthan — considered to be one of the largest solar corporate power-purchase agreements (PPA) by a technology company in India — and the largest single business-to-business project that ReNew is developing in India.

“Leading organisations like Amazon set an example for other companies globally to adopt clean energy sources and accelerate the energy transition — a prerequisite to meet our net-zero goals,” said Sumant Sinha, founder, chairman and CEO, ReNew.

Amazon has executed more than 500 Mw of renewable energy PPAs with Brookfield globally, and now 110 Mw in India.

“The new Bikaner solar park development is being undertaken as part of the Brookfield Global Transition Fund.

"We look forward to partnering governments and corporates to accelerate their sustainability and decarbonisation goals,” said Nawal Saini, managing director, renewable power and transition, Brookfield.

As the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy globally, Amazon now has a total of 379 renewable energy projects across 21 countries, including 154 wind and solar farms and 225 rooftop solar projects, representing 18.5 Gw of renewable energy capacity. In the Asia-Pacific region, the company has a total of 57 renewable energy projects.