Commercial, Industrial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  March 2, 2017

Amazon plans to install 41 MW of rooftop solar

^{Photo of Amazon fulfillment center with solar systems on its rooftop provided by Amazon.} 

Already a clean energy leader, Amazon.com Inc. is embarking on a new initiative that will increase its use of solar generation. 

The e-commerce giant on March 2 announced plans for a rollout of large-scale rooftop solar installations at its fulfillment facilities around the world. The initiative calls for solar installations at 15 of Amazon's fulfillment and sortation centers in the U.S. this year that are expected to total 41 MW of power, and 50 more across the globe by 2020.

"As our fulfillment network continues to expand, we want to help generate more renewable energy at both existing and new facilities around the world in partnership with community and business leaders," Amazon Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations Dave Clark said in a news release. "We are putting our scale and inventive culture to work on sustainability—this is good for the environment, our business and our customers. By diversifying our energy portfolio, we can keep business costs low and pass along further savings to customers. It's a win-win."

The initial U.S. solar projects, planned for completion by the end of 2017 at Amazon facilities in California, New Jersey, Maryland, Nevada and Delaware, according to the release. Depending on the specific project, time of year and other factors, a solar installation could generate as much as 80% of a single fulfillment facility's annual energy needs.

For example, Amazon said solar panels installed on the rooftop of the Patterson, Calif., fulfillment center cover more than three-quarters of the 1.1 million square foot building's rooftop and, given the generous amount of sunlight in the state, will work to power the hundreds of Amazon Robotics utilized by associates at ground-level. 

Amazon's recent renewable energy projects include the company's largest wind farm to date, located in Texas. In addition, a network of wind and solar farms in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia are delivering energy onto the electric grid that powers the data centers of its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services.

To date, Amazon said it has announced or commenced construction on projects which will generate a total of 3.6 million MW of renewable energy. The company is consistently ranked among the top corporate purchasers of renewable energy in the U.S. 

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