- Between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon.com Inc AMZN suffered “critical fire or arc events” at at least six of its 47 North American solar-equipped facilities, affecting 12.7% of those facilities, CNBC reports citing unpublished documents.
- “The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable and above the industry average,” an Amazon employee wrote in one of the internal reports.
- As of June 2021, Amazon has phased out every US operation using solar power. Amazon had to properly design, install, and maintain them before they “re-powered” any of them.
- Amazon blamed third-party partners and vendors for the top issues uncovered by auditor Clean Energy Associates (CEA) and other teams working on facilities and sustainability initiatives.
- In 2021, CEA informed Amazon of a critical and 259 significant finding across Amazon’s entire rooftop solar portfolio, including module-to-module connector mismatch, improper connector installation, poor cable management, and evidence of water ingress into the inverters.
- Amazon has developed a two-part plan to prevent future failures of its rooftop solar program.
- In late 2021, the divisions requested $3.6 million in funding to re-inspect sites containing significant discoveries.
- Internal teams also began urging Amazon’s leadership to rely more on employees and less on outside vendors.
- Job postings suggest Amazon is still hiring internally for solar operations employees.
- By the end of 2021, Amazon’s solar roof will power 115 of its fulfillment centers around the world with solar energy.
- Amazon would lose $940,000 million a month, or $20,000 for each of the 47 North American sites it shut down, as long as the solar array remains offline. Depending on the contract, Amazon may incur additional costs.
- Price promotion: AMZN shares traded 0.24% lower at $127.51 on the last check Friday in the pre-market.
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