- Iberdrola and Amazon expand global renewable energy partnership with a new Power Purchase Agreement from the 1.4 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind farm
- Amazon has enabled 54,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable energy from Iberdrola worldwide
- With Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) as preferred Cloud provider, Iberdrola has built a global data platform on AWS to support the exponential growth in smart meter and renewables data, and is harnessing the power of generative AI with Amazon Bedrock.
Bilbao, 20th March 2024: Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest clean energy companies, and Amazon have expanded their long-term global clean power partnership by signing a major renewable energy power purchase agreement (PPA) for 159 MW of East Anglia THREE offshore wind farm in the UK, equivalent to 700 gigawatt-hours GWh of clean electricity per-year.
Amazon has also signed PPAs with Iberdrola to enable projects in Germany, the U.S., and elsewhere in the UK. Over the life of these PPAs, Amazon has contracted 54,000 GWh of renewable energy from Iberdrola.
East Anglia THREE will support more than 2,300 jobs during construction, and 100 long-term jobs over the lifetime of the wind farm. The 1.4 GW project will be powered by 95 Siemens Gamesa 14.7 megawatt (MW) turbines, and will be located 69km off the coast of Suffolk. When the wind farm becomes fully operational, expected in 2026, the project will generate enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 1.3 million British homes1 and will be the second biggest offshore wind farm in the world.
The new agreement was announced at the Haizea Wind Group facility in Bilbao where the manufacture of 50 monopiles is underway. From there, they will be shipped to the UK and used to support the wind turbines of the East Anglia THREE wind farm.
Capacity from East Anglia THREE will support Amazon’s commitment to match all the electricity powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of the company’s original 2030 target. With more than 500 solar and wind projects globally, Amazon is also the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy since 2020.
Expanding on their digital partnership, the companies today launched the global “Journey to Cloud” programme, by further migrating Iberdrola’s operations to the Cloud and leveraging AWS’s High-Performance Computing services big data services. Projects already delivered include the use of the Cloud to halve the time it takes to run complex weather simulation, and Amazon Sagemaker Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning services to maximise the efficiency of renewable energy assets worldwide.
On Smart Grids, ScottishPower, an Iberdrola company, has built an Internet of things (IoT) platform to collect sensor data and improve the knowledge of its Low Voltage network in the UK. The two companies are designing projects to incorporate generative AI through Amazon Bedrock to improve the experience of its customers and support its field workers.
Ignacio Galán, Executive Chairman of Iberdrola, said: “Companies like Amazon are leading the corporate drive to advance the renewable energy industry, and guarantee energy security, sustainability, price stability and competitiveness. Today, two global leaders join forces in an agreement that will mean more energy independence, more local jobs and lower emissions on both sides of the Atlantic.
“We are excited to partner with Amazon in the field of generative AI and big data, allowing our business to innovate and scale at speed.”
Lindsay McQuade, Director of Energy for EMEA at Amazon, said: “Amazon is enabling renewable projects worldwide because transitioning to carbon-free energy sources is one of the most impactful ways to lower carbon emissions and help us reach our Climate Pledge commitment of net-zero carbon by 2040. This is good for the planet and our customers. It is great to see Iberdrola using the cloud and AI to turbocharge their renewables business and deliver much-needed clean power to grids worldwide.”
Two of Iberdrola’s previously announced offshore wind farms in Germany (Baltic Eagle and Windanker) will provide Amazon with 319 MW of clean energy (1.3 terawatt-hours each year), which is equivalent to the annual electricity needs of more than 314,000 European homes. In the US, Amazon has signed agreements which include Amazon Wind Farm Osagrove Flats wind farm for 150 MW (550 GWh/a) and the repowered Leaning Juniper IIA for 90 MW (240 GWh/a).
The Osagrove Flats wind farm will have a capacity of 150 MW in LaSalle County, Illinois. Consisting of 45 turbines, it will be capable of powering 24,400 homes annually. The project will support around 300 jobs during construction. The Repowered Leaning Juniper IIA will have a capacity of 98.4 MW in Gilliam County, Oregon. Consisting of 40 turbines, it will be capable of powering 22,800 homes annually. The project will support 200 jobs during construction.
About East Anglia THREE
- East Anglia THREE is the second of ScottishPower’s East Anglia offshore wind farm projects to be developed and part of the East Anglia Hub.
- Total capacity: 1,400 megawatts (MW), enough to supply the equivalent of more than 1.3 million homes with clean energy.
- Project: offshore wind farm will cover an area of approximately 305km2 and will involve the installation of 95 Siemens Gamesa 14.7 MW new generation wind turbines – which will have a tip height of up to 262 metres high. The development will comprise one offshore converter station and up to four subsea export cables.
- Status: Onshore construction work on the project, which is expected to start production in 2026, began in 2022. This is focusing on the installation in the county of Suffolk, in collaboration with Siemens, of the onshore substation that will connect the park to the National Grid electricity grid and the cable route, awarded to NKT.
- Offshore construction will get underway later in 2024; and foundations fabrication is progressing well. The first steel cans have been rolled for the 45 monopiles being manufactured by Joint Venture Navantia Seanergies Windar Renovables (JVNW) and the 50 being manufactured by Haizea. The first of the 95 transition pieces being produced by Windar Renovables have been transferred to its port facility for completion.
- Location: Suffolk, England, UK
- Distance from coast: 69km
About Iberdrola
Iberdrola is the largest utility in Europe, and one of the two largest globally, serving a population of more than 100 million people around the world. The company has a workforce of over 42,200 and assets in excess of €150 billion. In 2023, Iberdrola posted revenues of nearly €50 billion, net profit of €4.8 billion, with nearly €9.3 billion paid in tax contributions in the countries where it operates. The company helps to support more than 500,000 jobs in communities across its supply chain, and global supplier purchases topped €18.1 billion in 2023.
A benchmark in tackling climate change, Iberdrola has invested more than €150 billion over the past two decades to help build a sustainable energy model, based on sound environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles.
As a pioneer in providing clean energy solutions to industrial partners, Iberdrola was recently recognised by Pexapark as the leading European utility in both deals and volume of energy sold via long-term contracts (PPAs) with industrial customers in Europe: almost 1,000 MW signed in 2023.
About Amazon
Between 2014 to 2022, Amazon’s European wind and solar farms have helped generate an estimated €2.4 billion in investment in Europe and helped to contribute more than €723 million to the region’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to a new economic model developed by Amazon. The projects also supported more than 3,900 full-time equivalent jobs in 2022 alone.
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalised recommendations, Prime, Fulfilment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit aboutamazon.eu and follow @AmazonNewsEU.
Amazon has 30 operational on-site solar projects in Spain and has enabled 37 large-scale offsite renewable energy projects in the country, with a capacity of more than 2.3 GW. Once all projects are operational, they are expected to generate enough energy to power the equivalent of more than 1.3 million Spanish homes annually.
About Amazon Web Services
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 105 Availability Zones within 33 geographic regions, with announced plans for 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com
