Global e-commerce company Amazon has made yet another investment in solar power, this time to source clean power for its new headquarters or HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia in a bid to have it 100% renewable energy powered. It will come from a 120 MW solar farm in Pittsylvania County in Virginia of which Amazon has contracted 82 MW. It is the company’s 10th solar project investment in Virginia.
The expected annual power production of 172,500 MWh will also be shared with the company’s other own operations across the Commonwealth of Virginia such as Whole Foods Markets and fulfillment centers. In all, the company said it will take about two-thirds of the renewable energy generated, the remainder will be consumed by Arlington County’s government operations.
Arlington County’s Board Chair Libby Garvey said, “It will take us a long way toward our goal of 100% use of renewable sources for all electricity used in government operations by 2025.” Both Amazon and the county have entered into separate power purchase agreements (PPA) with Dominion Energy.
The project will be located on agricultural land between Danville and Lynchburg and is expected to enter construction in 2020 with commercial operations due for 2022.
In 2019, Amazon contracted 900 MW of total renewable energy capacity and found itself on the third spot of BloombergNEF’s 1H 2020 Corporate Energy Market Outlook report that claims a total of 19.5 GW such PPAs by the end of last year (see 19.5 GW Corporate Clean Energy Contracts In 2019).
Amazon aims to have 80% renewable energy in its mix by 2024 and increase it to 100% by 2030 in its journey to go carbon neutral by 2050. To date it has launched 84 renewable energy projects with 2 GW of renewable capacity, it added.
