Amazon signs 250-MW offshore wind PPA with Ørsted in Germany

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) will buy power from 250 MW of capacity at the Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind complex in the German North Sea under a 10-year deal with Denmark’s Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED), the latter said today.

This is the e-commerce giant’s first corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) for offshore wind. It supports the company’s 100% renewable energy use target for 2030 and net-zero carbon goal for 2040.

Subscribe for Renewables Now's Corporate PPA Newsletter here for free!

Ørsted expects to take the final investment decision (FID) for the 900-MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 project near the end of 2021. The complex, uniting three projects awarded in auctions in 2017 and 2018, is expected to go online by 2025.

“The CPPA with Amazon on Borkum Riffgrund 3 will drive this breakthrough zero-subsidy project a step closer towards realization, where it will supply large amounts of clean electricity for Germany’s green transition,” said Rasmus Errboe at Ørsted Offshore, adding that Germany, with its recent 40-GW offshore wind goal by 2040, remains an attractive market for the Danish company.

German polymer materials supplier Covestro AG (ETR:1COV) in November 2019 agreed to buy the electricity generated by a 100-MW portion of the same project. In the last 12 months, Ørsted has signed corporate PPAs for 1.3 GW of offshore wind, it noted.

Amazon has another off-take contract with the Danish energy company for a 253-MW onshore wind farm in Texas.