[imagesource: Paul Morigi/Getty]

Last September, Amazon announced a series of initiatives and issued a call for companies to reduce their carbon emissions 10 years ahead of the goals set forth in the Paris Agreement.

This was done as part of a sweeping effort to reduce its own environmental footprint.

The company has clearly been busy, because yesterday it announced that it would be adding 26 new “utility-scale” wind and solar projects around the world, including in South Africa, bringing the total number of these projects to 127.

The inclusion of South Africa in these plans has come soon after its giant cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services (AWS), opened a data centre ‘region’ in Cape Town, says Moneyweb.

Seattle, US-based Amazon said in a statement that the 26 new renewable energy projects are located in South Africa, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK and the US.

The projects will deliver a total of 3.4GW of electricity production capacity. Its renewable energy investments announced to date will supply 6.5GW of capacity.

A word on how and why the company plans on moving forward from Jeff Bezos, via Businesswire:

“Amazon is helping fight climate change by moving quickly to power our businesses with renewable energy,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “With a total of 127 solar and wind projects, Amazon is now the biggest corporate buyer of renewable energy ever.”

Image: Jeff Bezos opens Amazon’s Texas wind farm in 2017, Screenshot/Geekwire

“We are on a path to running 100% 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.”

That’s an interesting look, Jeff.

The project in South Africa has been approved by energy regulator Nersa, and is being led by local solar energy experts The SOLA Group, reports TechCentral:

The SOLA Group will be responsible for developing the project in South Africa and will build, own and operate the 10MW solar facility.

The project will be majority black owned, with Mahlako a Phahla Investments, a black women-owned and operated energy and infrastructure investment holding company, owning 45%.

It is set to supply 28GWh of solar power ‘wheeled’ or ‘transmitted’, via Eskom’s grid, to Amazon’s facilities. Here’s The SOLA Group executive director Chris Haw:

“Energy wheeling holds tremendous value in that it enables the supply of energy to urban areas, which has been generated from energy projects in outlying areas, such as a solar farm located in an area where the sun is most powerful and consistent. This is done through the transfer of electrical power via a utility’s transmission or distribution system between different grid or network service areas.”

The giant solar farm that will supply the company with electricity will be built in the Northern Cape, where it’s hotter than hell, with plenty of sun.

Construction is set to start next year.

The go-ahead from Nersa also bodes well for Amazon, as it’s something that similar projects have struggled to receive.

If you want to throw a little energy to the general public, Amazon, when the next round of load shedding strikes (that could be soon), you’ll hear no complaints from me.

While you’re at it, why not pay your warehouse employees a living wage, and pay your fair share of taxes?

[sources:moneyweb&businesswire&techcentral]