Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge at the National News Club on September 19, 2019, in Washington.
Paul Morigi | Getty Images | Amazon
LONDON – Amazon announced on Monday that it plans to buy half of the energy produced by a major new wind farm in the Netherlands.
Shell and Eneco were given the right to build the 759 megawatt wind farm in the North Sea last July and Amazon said it would now buy more than 380 MW of its output to power the plant. in Europe.
Amazon said the “Amazon-Shell HKN Coastal Wind Project” is the largest single-site renewable energy project yet. The offshore wind farm is expected by 2023.
Located 18.5 kilometers off the coast of the Netherlands and covering an area of 125 square kilometers, the wind farm will be run by the CrossWind Consortium, which is a joint venture between Shell and Eneco.
Siemens Gamesa will reportedly have 69 wind turbines with a capacity of 11MW and a rotor diameter of 200 meters.
The offshore wind farm will feature five technology demonstrations that have the potential to be implemented at full scale in the future, including a floating solar park and “turbines”. well trained. “
Tech goes green
Like other tech giants, Amazon is looking to use the billions to pay for more renewable energy sources and reduce its carbon footprint.
The company’s data centers around the world use a huge amount of electricity to perform computing tasks for Amazon and other companies.
Over the years, Greenpeace has complained that Amazon is relatively secretive about the energy sources it uses to power the plants, which are operated by Amazon Web Services.
Amazon has also been criticized for increasing pollution with its planes and vans, and for using too much cardboard when packaging its products.
Amazon said the Dutch project will bring it closer to the goal of zero carbon by 2040 and allow it to run 100% renewable energy by 2025, which is five years earlier than it was. previously expected.
The company said it now has 187 solar and wind projects worldwide. That includes 125 solar panels on its large stores, called performance centers.
The UK has the largest solar roof installation in Europe and is equivalent to 28 football pitches, meaning it can produce enough power for 700 homes for one year, Amazon said.
Amazon said its renewable energy projects now generate more than 6.9 gigawatts and deliver more than 20 million megawatt hours of energy annually.
Amazon claims to be the second largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world.