An Amazon employee estimated, in the documents circulated internally, that each incident cost the company an average of $2.7 million. "Amazon also built a team of dedicated solar experts overseeing the construction, operations, and maintenance of our systems in-house to ensure the safety of our systems."Įxcluded from the public sustainability report is any mention of the expenses Amazon incurs when there's a failure. ![]() "As inspections are completed, our onsite solar systems are being powered back on," Howard said. ![]() "Many of our fulfillment facilities throughout the U.S., Europe, and India are powered by on-site solar, where a rooftop installation can power up to 80% of the facility's energy use," the report said.īy April of this year, Amazon had onsite solar at 176 facilities, according to its website. The majority of those are outside the U.S. In that report, available to the public via Amazon's sustainability website, the company said rooftop solar was powering 115 of its fulfillment centers across the globe by the end of 2021, up from more than 90 in the middle of the year. Those details didn't show up in Amazon's 100-page sustainability report for 2021, which was published at the beginning of August. "Out of an abundance of caution, following a small number of isolated incidents with onsite solar systems owned and operated by third parties, Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar installations in North America, and took immediate steps to re-inspect each installation by a leading solar technical expert firm," the statement said. The company had to ensure its systems were designed, installed and maintained properly before "re-energizing" any of them.Īmazon spokesperson Erika Howard told CNBC in a statement that the incidents involved systems run by partners, and that the company responded by voluntarily turning off its solar-powered roofs. operations with solar had to be taken offline temporarily, internal documents show. īy June of last year, all of Amazon's U.S. In 2019, founder Jeff Bezos launched the Climate Pledge, promising the largest online retailer would zero out emissions by 2040, embrace renewable energy and move away from gas-guzzling delivery vans, including through a billion-dollar-plus investment in electric vehicle company Rivian. Amazon has been among the most aggressive. The solar snafus underscore the challenge Amazon and many other large corporations face in their quest to shrink their environmental footprint and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. ![]() "The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable, and above industry averages," an Amazon employee wrote in one of the internal reports. Arc flashes are a kind of electrical explosion. The documents, which have never been made public, indicate that between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon experienced "critical fire or arc flash events" in at least six of its 47 North American sites with solar installations, affecting 12.7% of such facilities. ![]() In the intervening months, at least four other Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions due to failures with their solar energy-generating systems, according to internal company documents viewed by CNBC. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or LowerĪ little over a year later, about 60 firefighters were called to an even larger Amazon facility in Perryville, Maryland, to put out a two-alarm blaze, local news outlets reported. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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