Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces the co-foundation of The Climate Pledge at the National Press Club on September 19, 2019 in Washington.
Paul Morigi | Getty images | Amazon
LONDON – Amazon announced Monday that it plans to buy half the energy produced by a huge new wind farm in the Netherlands.
Shell and Eneco secured 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 production to supply its operations in Europe.
Amazon said the “Amazon-Shell HKN Offshore Wind Project” will be its largest single-site renewable energy project to date. The offshore wind farm is expected to be operational by 2023.
Located 18.5 kilometers off 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 will have 69 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines with a capacity of 11 MW and a rotor diameter of 200 meters.
The offshore wind farm will include five technology demonstrations with the potential to be implemented on a large scale in the future, including a floating solar park and “optimized turbines”.
Technology turns green
Like other tech 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 computing tasks for Amazon and other companies.
Over the years, Greenpeace has accused Amazon of being relatively secretive about the sources of energy 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 in the packaging of its products.
Amazon said the Netherlands project will bring it closer to its goal of being liquid zero carbon by 2040 and allowing it to use 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of plan.
The company said it now has 187 solar and wind projects worldwide. This includes 125 installations on solar roofs in its huge warehouses, which she calls service centers.
Europe’s largest solar roof installation is in the UK and is equivalent to 28 football fields, which means it can produce enough energy for 700 homes for a year, Amazon said.
Amazon added that 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 world’s second largest corporate buyer of renewable energy.