Amazon has revealed that at the end of January 2023 it set a new corporate record for the most amount of renewable energy purchased by a company in a single year.
The company has long invested in green energy, and according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report, it has become the biggest buyer of renewable energy since 2020.
Last year, it added 133 new projects to its portfolio, operating in 11 countries with a total output of 8.3 gigawatts. That means last year’s addition alone now accounts for 41.5% of its 20 gigawatt portfolio.
Amazon Renewable Energy
The tech giant reckons this 20 gigawatts of energy, powered by more than 400 projects in 22 countries, is enough to power 15.3 million homes in Europe
Investments in 164 wind farms and 237 rooftop solar projects designed to support the grid power some of its operations, including fulfillment centers, retail stores and AWS data centers.
As well as building out its existing portfolio in several countries last year, Amazon has also entered new countries with its renewable energy ambitions, including Brazil, India and Indonesia. .
All of this, Amazon hopes, will help it achieve its goal of powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years earlier than its original goal in 2015. 2030.
The company believes that rapidly scaling renewable energy is one of the most effective ways to combat climate change and the figures show that it is willing to put its money in its place. .
Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said, “Amazon’s clean energy portfolio has not only topped the charts of companies – it is now among the top 10. leading utilities around the world”. Its willingness to keep pushing despite the lasting effects of the pandemic and the ensuing global economic uncertainty will spur other companies to do the same.
By that point, Amazon wasn’t the only company racing to reduce its carbon footprint. Microsoft announced last month that it would open a new project in South Korea to generate 2.5 gigawatts of solar energy to meet its goal of using only renewable energy by 2030.
