Amazon Books Over Half of Moray West Offshore Wind Capacity to Power UK Operations

Business & Finance

January 30, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

Amazon has signed a corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) for a total of 473 MW of Moray West offshore wind farm’s generation capacity to help power its operations when the project becomes operational later this year.

The technology giant signed the CPPA with ENGIE, which owns the Moray West project through Ocean Winds, the 50-50 joint venture between ENGIE and EDP Renewables.

The 473 MW Amazon secured through the agreement is enough to power the equivalent of more than 650,000 UK homes annually and is more than half of the total installed capacity of the 882 MW Moray West offshore wind farm.

The project already has 100 MW of its generation capacity reserved since 2022, when Google entered into a twelve-year corporate power purchase agreement with ENGIE for Moray West.

Located in the Moray Firth in the north east of Scotland, the offshore wind farm is currently under construction with foundation installation underway.

Moray West will comprise 60 Siemens Gamesa 14.7 MW wind turbines and is scheduled to generate power in 2024 and to be fully operational in 2025.

Ocean Winds says it is following an accelerated development and construction plan, with capacity from the site supporting Amazon’s goal of powering all operations with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the company’s original target.

According to a press release from the Moray West developer, Amazon’s investment in solar and wind projects has led the company to become Europe’s and the UK’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy.

Last year, the technology company entered into a collaboration agreement with Iberdrola, which also involves power purchase from two of Iberdrola’s offshore wind farms in Germany, Baltic Eagle and Windanker.

In 2020, Amazon signed a ten-year CPPA with Ørsted to offtake the output of 250 MW from the 900 MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm in Germany and increased the reserved capacity by further 100 MW the following year.