Amazon snaps up Scottish wind farm as internet giant become's world’s largest corporate buyer of green energy

Amazon has laid claim to being the world’s largest corporate purchaser of green energy after investing in a string of renewable projects including a major Scottish wind farm.

Amazon has now invested in 6.5 gigawatts of wind and solar projects that will enable it to supply renewable energy for its corporate offices, fulfilment centres and data centres around the world. Picture: John Devlin

The internet giant said it had now invested in 6.5 gigawatts of wind and solar projects that will enable it to supply renewable energy for its corporate offices, fulfilment centres and data centres around the world.

The annual output would be sufficient to power some 1.7 million homes.

It announced its investment in 26 new utility-scale renewable projects totalling 3.4 gigawatts of energy capacity, including an onshore wind project at Kennoxhead in South Lanarkshire.

Kennoxhead marks the largest single site corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) in the UK. It will be completed over two phases, in 2022 and 2024, and produce 129 megawatts of energy once operational.

The wind farm is Amazon’s second CPPA deal in the UK – the first being the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland, in October 2019. The US-headquartered group also completed an on-site solar installation in Tilbury, next to the River Thames, in October.

The 26 new wind and solar projects are located in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Sweden and the UK.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, said: “Amazon is helping fight climate change by moving quickly to power our businesses with renewable energy.

“With a total of 127 solar and wind projects, Amazon is now the biggest corporate buyer of renewable energy ever.

“We are on a path to running 100 per cent of our business on renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of our original target of 2030.

“This is just one of the many steps we’re taking that will help us meet our climate pledge. I couldn’t be more proud of all the teams across Amazon that continue to work hard, smart, and fast to get these projects up and running.”

Meanwhile, BP and Amazon have agreed to extend their longstanding relationship, with the UK energy major to supply additional renewable energy to power Amazon’s operations and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

William Lin, BP’s executive vice president, regions, cities and solutions, said: “Our successful relationship supports both BP’s and Amazon’s ambitions to reduce our emissions and help our customers reduce theirs.”

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