Amazon ends up being 'world's biggest' renewable resource backer with 26 new utility-scale solar and also wind projects

• Ecommerce huge Amazon has purchased 26 new utility-scale wind and also solar projects worldwide, bringing the business's total renewable energy capacity to 6.5 GW.

Amazon has actually bought solar as well as wind projects in France, Germany, Italy and South Africa for the first time as part of a strategy to operate on 100% renewable resource by 2025.

The business, which broke ground on its initial solar ranch in Virginia, United States, four years earlier, claims it is currently the world's largest company backer of renewable resource to-date.

Owner and also chief executive Jeff Bezos claimed in June that Amazon would invest around US$ 2 billion in supporting low carbon technologies as part of its Climate Pledge, which was unveiled last year. The pledge lays out a series of targets for the business with the aim of reaching net-zero carbon discharges by 2040.

While the business kept quiet concerning how specifically the funds would be invested, it has actually revealed today that it will certainly buy an additional 3.4 GW solar and also wind capability, bringing its general capacity to 6.5 GW.

Along with breaking ground in 4 new markets, Amazon will certainly deal with more power farms in Australia, Sweden, the UK as well as the US.

Bezos stated today (10 December) that Amazon is currently on target to operate on 100% renewable resource by 2025, "5 years ahead of our initial target".

Amazon currently has and runs 127 renewable resource projects worldwide, consisting of 59 utility-scale wind and also solar projects, in addition to 68 solar roofs on its storehouse centers.

It dedicated to its first massive solar projects in Spain in December 2019. The company introduced a string of new projects, including its very first in Australia, three months later, and then broadened right into China's well-established solar market with a further five utility-scale solar plants in May. This indicates that Amazon has actually funded 4GW of renewable resource with 35 projects throughout 2020, which was lauded by the CEO and also president of the American Council of Renewable Energy (ACORE), Gregory Wetstone, as an "extraordinary accomplishment".

"It marks large progress towards Amazon's goal of being powered by 100% sustainable power", he added.

The team is just one of several business giants that have actually bought solar modern technology in the race to considerably lower their carbon emissions by the mid-century. Last year, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported that 7,000 MW of solar ability had actually been installed in the US by companies across 35,000 projects, well over dual the 2,500 MW as well as 7,000 projects in the 2017 report.

A report from BloombergNEF at the beginning of 2020 placed Amazon as the third largest corporate purchaser of renewable resource in the US, just behind tech titans Google and also Facebook.

Miranda Ballentine, the president of the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA), stated that economic sector investment is "essential to scaling renewable resource at the pace essential to drive global environment action".