Amazon Buys Half of an Offshore Wind Farm's Power

Most offshore wind farms sell their electricity to a utility. Others are owned by a utility and provide the power to their own grid. A small number find a different way to market by selling some of the power to a really big consumer. An EDP/Engie joint venture off Scotland has succeeded in just that, and in a high-tech fashion: in two separate deals, the Moray West project has sold more than half its output to Google and Amazon. 

In a contract announced Tuesday, Amazon has agreed to buy more than 470 MW of generating capacity from Engie, accounting for more than half of Moray West's 880 MW capacity. The deal will support Amazon's goal to run all its operations on renewable power by 2025. 

"Projects like Moray West will play a critical role in decarbonizing Amazon’s operations and the UK grid, with this agreement demonstrating Amazon’s commitment to this ambition," said Amazon's director of energy for EMEA, Lindsay McQuade. 

Amazon is the biggest corporate buyer of renewable power in the UK, the EU, and the world, and it added about one gigawatt worth of capacity to its portfolio in the region in 2023. The newly-announced agreement represents half of last year's total. 

The other big customer for Moray West is Amazon's competitor Google. The California tech giant has agreed to buy 100 GW worth of the wind farm's capacity. After the project comes online, Google's UK operations will run on 90 percent renewable power. 

“People across the UK and Europe are increasingly worried about climate change and energy security. We share that concern and believe technology is an important part of the solution - both by reducing our own emissions, and by helping others to reduce their own,” said Matt Brittin, President of Google EMEA, in a statement at the time.