Amazon has entered power agreements with nine new renewable projects in New South Wales and Victoria, aiming to secure renewable electricity for its datacentre operations in Australia.
The deals cover one windfarm and 10 solar and battery projects. Together, they will move the amount of renewable energy Amazon is sourcing in Australia from 430MW to nearly 1GW. Power purchase agreements, in this case, are contracts between energy providers and datacentre operators designed to meet expected electricity demands.
Amazon said it has agreements for more than 20 projects in Australia as it works toward net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Among the announced supply is power from Victoria’s Golden Plains 2, the largest windfarm in Australia, which began operating in 2024. There is also a solar and battery storage farm in Muswellbrook in New South Wales, being built on a former coalmine site—an odd detail if you think about it, because the landscape is already carrying old work, and now it’s meant for new energy.
The battery sites matter in a way that goes beyond adding capacity. Misryoum newsroom reported that funding for battery sites was the first time Amazon had invested in solar-battery hybrid projects outside the US. Matt O’Rourke, Amazon Web Services’ head of infrastructure and energy policy in Australia and New Zealand, said the battery investment would help stabilise the grid, describing batteries being charged when the sun and wind are available and then de-charged during peak periods when those sources may not be producing.
That timing issue sits right alongside growing political and community pushback to datacentre construction. Australia has been encouraged to fast-track new developments to meet demand driven by artificial intelligence, but a NSW parliament inquiry this month heard concerns raised by a number of Sydney councils—particularly about environmental impact, plus power and water use for planned datacentres. While Amazon highlights how much renewable energy it is buying, Misryoum newsroom reported that the company would not say how much its datacentres would consume in the electricity grid.
O’Rourke said: “We don’t break down the power consumption at the individual country level.” He added that, from an economy-wide perspective, datacentres collectively consume the same amount of electricity as all of the shopping centres, but the datacentres are facilitating new renewable energy coming into the grid. That comparison has been favoured in recent months by the datacentres industry in Australia, with Data Centres Australia using the same statistic. Misryoum editorial desk noted it originated from a Mandala report from November 2025 commissioned by AirTrunk, Amazon Web Services, CDC Data Centres and NextDC, and that the report aimed to address concerns over water and electricity use at datacentres.
O’Rourke said partners with whom Amazon signed the agreements had “done extensive community consultation,” and he framed the company’s focus as ensuring the “community can benefit from the renewable energy that becomes available.” But not everyone is convinced these contracts bring genuinely new generation. Misryoum analysis indicates that Rod Sims, chair of the Superpower Institute and former competition regulator chair, said last month the issue with many power purchase agreements entered into by datacentre companies is that they are not bringing in additional power—just supplying power for datacentres. In his view, without stronger market signals like a carbon price, renewables may not be built fast enough to meet demand.
Amazon entered into eight of the nine agreements announced on Thursday when the projects were in the development stage, the company said. Dr Hao Wang, a senior lecturer in Monash University’s data science and AI department, said investing in renewables through power purchase agreements is “definitely welcome” if it adds new capacity, but he also argued for better transparency. He said operators should be upfront about how much centres use in peak demand times, saying: “We are in the dark. We don’t know exactly how the centre actually operates and how much they consume over time.”
On a humid morning, you can almost hear the practical side of this story—generators, fans, the quiet churn of servers—while the debate stays stubbornly human: who benefits, who worries, and what kind of power is actually being bought, and when.
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