Category Archives: Green America

Amazon, AWS, Brent Alderfer, Community Energy, Datacentre, Green America, Jerry Hunter, News & Analysis, sustainability

AWS announces huge solar project following criticisms of its green cred

AWS announced a large solar project, part of its commitment to powering all of its global infrastructure with renewables

AWS announced a large solar project, part of its commitment to powering all of its global infrastructure with renewables

Amazon announced this week that it has teamed up with Community Energy to build and operate an 80 megawatt (MW) solar farm in Virginia, which the companies claim to be the largest solar farm in the state.

The announcement comes just one day after an environmental advocacy group hit out at AWS over its carbon footprint and energy reporting practices.

The companies said the solar farm, to be named the Amazon Solar Farm US East, will start generating approximately 170,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of solar power annually as early as October 2016 – which is roughly equivalent to the amount of energy used to power approximately 15,000 US homes for a year.

Amazon said the power purchasing agreement (PPA) is part of its long-term goal announced last year of powering all of its datacentre infrastructure using 100 per cent renewables. It said as of April this year about a quarter of its infrastructure is powered by renewables.

“We continue to make significant progress towards our long-term commitment to power the global AWS infrastructure with 100 percent renewable energy,” said Jerry Hunter, vice president of infrastructure at Amazon Web Services. “Amazon Solar Farm US East – the second PPA that will serve both existing and planned AWS datacenters in the central and eastern US – has the added benefit of working to increase the availability of renewable energy in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Community Energy chief executive Brent Alderfer said: “We are pleased to work with Amazon Web Services to build the largest solar farm in Virginia and one of the largest east of the Mississippi. This project, which wouldn’t have been possible without AWS’ leadership, helps accelerate the commercialization and deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies at scale in Virginia.”

Earlier this week Green America, a US-based environmental advocacy group, said Amazon is far behind other datacentre operators – including some of its large competitors like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook – in terms of its renewable energy use and reporting practices. Google and Apple have been particularly strong in using or generating renewable energy to power their datacentres, with Apple committed to a number of large solar projects globally.

The group launched a campaign this week aimed at convincing Amazon to alter its environmental strategy. It is calling on Amazon to commit to full use of renewables for its datacentres by 2020 (AWS hasn’t set a target date publicly); submit accurate and complete data to the Carbon Disclosure Project; and issue and annual sustainability report.

Amazon, AWS, Carbon Disclosure Project;, Datacentre, Elizabeth O'Connell, Green America, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Todd Larsen

Green America hits out at Amazon for its dirty cloud

Amazon has committed to bolstering its use of renewables, but Green America thinks it needs to go further

Amazon has committed to bolstering its use of renewables, but Green America thinks it needs to go further

Notforprofit environmental advocacy group Green America is launched a campaign to try and convince Amazon to reduce its carbon footprint and catch up with other large cloud incumbents’ green credentials.

Green America said Amazon is behind other datacentre operators – including some of its large competitors like Google, Apple and Facebook – in terms of its renewable energy use and reporting practices.

“Every day, tens of millions of consumers are watching movies, reading news articles, and posting to social media sites that all use Amazon Web Services.  What they don’t realize is that by using Amazon Web Services they are contributing to climate change,” said Green america’s campaigns director Elizabeth O’Connell.

“Amazon needs to take action now to increase its use of renewables to 100 percent by 2020, so that consumers won’t have to choose between using the internet and protecting the planet,” O’Connell said.

Executive co-director Todd Larsen also commented on Amazon’s green cred: “Amazon lags behind its competitors, such as Google and Microsoft, in using renewable energy for its cloud-based computer servers.  Unlike most of its competitors, it also fails to publish a corporate responsibility or sustainability reporting, and it fails to disclose its emissions and impacts to the Carbon Disclosure Project.”

Amazon has recently taken strides towards making its datacentres greener. In November last year the company committed to using 100 per cent renewable energy for its global infrastructure, bowing to pressure from organisations like Greenpeace which have previously criticised the company’s reporting practices around its carbon footprint. But organisations like Green America still believe the company is way off the mark on its commitment.

Green America’s campaign is calling on Amazon to commit to full use of renewables for its datacentres by 2020; submit accurate and complete data to the Carbon Disclosure Project; and issue and annual sustainability report.

An Amazon spokesperson told BCN that the company and its customers are already showing environmental leadership by adopting cloud services in the first place.

“AWS customers have already shown environmental leadership by moving to cloud computing, which is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional computing. Any analysis on the climate impact of a datacentre should take into consideration resource utilization and energy efficiency, in addition to power mix,” the spokesperson said.

“On average, AWS customers use 77 per cent fewer servers, 84 per cent less power, and utilize a 28 per cent cleaner power mix, for a total reduction in carbon emissions of 88 per cent from using the AWS Cloud instead of operating their own datacentres. We believe that our focus on resource utilization and energy efficiency, combined with our increasing use of renewable energy, will help our customers achieve their carbon reduction and sustainability goals. We will continue to provide updates of our progress on our AWS & Sustainable Energy page,” she added.