Key takeaways
- According to BloombergNEF's latest data, Amazon is the largest corporate purchaser of carbon-free energy in Europe, and one of the leading purchasers worldwide.
- Amazon's carbon-free energy investments in Europe include solar, as well as onshore and offshore wind.
- These projects add new energy to the grid, help stabilise electricity costs, and create thousands of local jobs.
In today’s world, the products and services we need and enjoy require increasing amounts of power from our grids. We're a leader in bringing new carbon-free energy forward to meet this demand, while redefining what responsible growth looks like. Since 2020, we have set the industry standard as the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, like wind and solar energy, as recognised by BloombergNEF.
For 2025, we were again the largest corporate purchaser of carbon-free energy in Europe, and recognised by BloombergNEF as one of the leading purchasers worldwide. With more than 700 projects globally, we now have the largest carbon-free energy portfolio of any corporation, reaching more than 40GW with sufficient capacity to power the equivalent of more than 36 million European households every year.
When companies like Amazon invest in new carbon-free energy projects, we’re not just helping to power our own operations; we're adding brand-new sources of carbon-free energy to the power grid that everyone uses—the same grid that powers homes, hospitals, and schools. In Europe, these projects will together provide more than 10 GW of new carbon-free energy capacity, enough to power the equivalent of more than 8 million European and UK households annually.
These investments can also help spur the modernisation of the energy infrastructure that communities rely on every day, which helps keep electricity costs stable and affordable for families and businesses.
For example, we have signed a Power Purchase Agreement of 110 MW with RWE for the German Nordseecluster B offshore wind farm. With a total capacity of 900 MW, we're one of the largest offtakers enabling a project of this magnitude. By helping bring nearly a gigawatt of new offshore wind capacity online, this investment directly supports Germany's grid decarbonisation and accelerates the country's broader energy transition.
What happens when Amazon invests in carbon-free energy?
As one of the world’s largest purchasers of carbon-free energy, our portfolio spans more than 700 projects, including more than 260 in the EU and UK. Beyond just adding new carbon-free energy to the grid, these projects also create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions in local areas, help to improve grid reliability and infrastructure, and power the AI innovation and emerging technologies essential to Europe's technological leadership.
These projects contribute to momentum across the corporate sector. Companies like Amazon that commit to long-term power purchase agreements provide the financial certainty that enables developers to build new renewable generation at scale—helping to meet Europe's growing electricity demands while creating economies of scale to bring the cost of new technologies down, driving innovation, and strengthening the energy ecosystem for everyone.
Leading the industry in resource efficiency
We're constantly working to optimise our water usage across our operations as part of AWS’ goal to be water positive by 2030 —returning more water to the community than used in direct operations. By the end of 2024, we were already more than halfway (53%) to achieving the goal.
It starts with evaluating climate patterns, local water management and availability, and opportunities to use sustainable water sources. Our data centres use cloud-based technologies to analyse their real-time water use and identify leaks. In 2024, AWS achieved a Water Use Efficiency (WUE) metric of 0.04 litres per kilowatt-hour in Europe—93% better than industry average—with many facilities using no water for cooling for up to 95% of the year.
We’re also constantly working to increase the power efficiency of our data centres as this helps us to use less energy overall. We measure data centre energy efficiency through Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). The lower this number, the more efficient the facility—meaning less energy wasted to deliver the same computing power to customers. Our data centres achieved a global PUE of 1.15 in 2024, with the best-performing site in Europe achieving a PUE of 1.04 —significantly outperforming both the public cloud computing industry average and on-premises enterprise data centres.
How Amazon is powering the future
The world needs more energy, and it needs that energy to be carbon-free, reliable, and affordable for everyone.
Our investments in carbon-free energy represent a different approach to corporate responsibility: one where business growth and community benefit are not competing priorities, but complementary goals. When we invest billions in solar farms and wind projects, we're not just securing power for our operations—we're helping build the energy infrastructure that will power homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses.
This work reflects our commitment to responsible growth in Europe: over 260 projects creating thousands of jobs, advancing new technologies, and adding carbon-free energy to grids that serve entire communities. This work is complex and challenging, but our teams working behind the scenes—from engineers optimising grid connections to project managers coordinating with local communities—understand what's at stake: building energy infrastructure that will serve communities for generations to come.
As we work toward our Climate Pledge goal to reach net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040, we’ll continue to lead by example and show that meeting the energy demands of today and building a cleaner, more affordable energy future for tomorrow aren't competing priorities—they're the same mission.
