Amazon has announced one of the company’s newest renewable energy projects. The tech giant’s newest renewable energy project in the EU will be located in Cork, Ireland, and will be the second Amazon Wind Farm in the Republic of Ireland. Once complete, the new Amazon Wind Farm will provide 23.2 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity, with expected generation of 68,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy annually.
The project is expected to begin producing clean energy in 2020 and will supply clean energy to the company’s Amazon Web Services data centres, which power Amazon and millions of AWS customers globally.
Additionally, Amazon’s investments in renewable energy were recently recognised in the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) 2018 Solar Means Business Report, which ranked Amazon number one in the US for amount of corporate on-site solar installed in 2018, and number two for total amount of solar installed to date.
Globally, Amazon has 66 renewable energy projects – including 51 solar rooftops – that are expected to generate 1,342 MW of renewable capacity and deliver more than 3.9 million MWh of clean energy annually.
“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, Amazon. “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.”
“Under the Climate Action Plan, we are committing that 70% of Ireland’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030. Industry leadership is key to helping us reach this target,” said Richard Bruton, Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. “This project is another example of AWS’ commitment to renewable projects in Ireland, adding clean energy to the grid and supporting Ireland’s climate commitments. Construction will begin on this project this year and will start contributing to Ireland’s renewable energy capacity by 2020. We look forward to continuing to work with AWS as we strive to make Ireland a leader in the renewable energy space.”
