(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. hired Community Energy Inc.
to build an 80-megawatt solar farm in Virginia that will supply
power to the retailer’s data centers.
The Amazon Solar Farm U.S. East project in Accomack County
is expected to begin operating by October 2016, the Seattle-based retailer said in a statement Wednesday. Financial terms
weren’t disclosed.
The company’s Amazon Web Services unit said in November
that it’s seeking to operate exclusively on renewable energy.
About one quarter of the power now used by the subsidiary comes
from clean sources, and it plans to increase that to 40 percent
by the end of next year, according to the statement.
More than 8.7 gigawatts of solar capacity will be installed
this year in the U.S., which would trail only China and Japan,
according to forecasts compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
Carlos Caminada, Tina Davis