Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge at the National Press Club on September 19, 2019, in Washington.
Paul Morigi | Getty Images | Amazon
LONDON – Amazon announced on Monday that it intends to buy half of the energy produced by a new huge wind farm in the Netherlands.
Shell and Eneco secured the right to build a 759-megawatt wind farm in the North Sea in July last year, and Amazon said it would now purchase more than 380 MW of its production to power its operations in Europe.
Amazon said the “Amazon-Shell HKN offshore wind project” will be the largest one-place renewable energy project to date. The offshore wind farm is expected to be operational by 2023.
Located 18.5 kilometers from the Dutch coast and covering an area of 125 square kilometers, the wind farm will be operated by the CrossWind consortium, which is a joint venture between Shell and Eneco.
It looks like it will include 69 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa with a capacity of 11 MW and a rotor diameter of 200 meters.
The offshore wind farm will include five technological demonstrations that have the potential to be widely implemented in the future, including a floating solar park and “optimally regulated turbines”.
Technology is turning green
Like other technology giants, Amazon is looking to use its billions to pay for more renewable energy sources and reduce its carbon footprint.
The company’s data centers around the world use large amounts of electricity to perform computational tasks for Amazon and other companies.
Over the years, Greenpeace has accused Amazon of being relatively secretive about the energy sources it uses to power the centers, which are operated by Amazon Web Services.
Amazon has also been criticized for increasing pollution with its planes and vans and for using excessive amounts of cardboard to pack its products.
Amazon said the Dutch project will bring it closer to its goal of being zero-carbon by 2040 and allow it to get rid of 100% renewable energy by 2025, which is five years earlier than previously planned.
The company said it now has 187 solar and wind projects worldwide. It includes 125 solar installations on the roof of its huge warehouses, which it calls fulfillment centers.
The largest solar roof installation in Europe is in the UK and is equivalent to 28 football pitches, which means it can produce enough energy for 700 homes a year, Amazon said.
Amazon added that its renewable energy projects now generate more than 6.9 gigawatts and supply more than 20 million megawatts of energy annually.
Amazon claims to be the second largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world.