Amazon announces renewable energy center coming to Lee County
Amazon | December 03, 2019
Online retail giant Amazon is bringing a solar energy project to Lee County. The website made the announcement along with major investments into renewable energy in Virginia and Spain, making the project the first in Europe and Illinois. Amazon’s newest renewable energy solar projects in the US will be located in Lee County, Illinois and Frederick County, Virginia. Together, they total 180 MW and are expected to generate almost 400,000 MWh of renewable energy annually. This will be Amazon’s first large-scale renewable energy project in the state of Illinois and the Midwest, and ninth in the Commonwealth of Virginia. These projects are part of Amazon's climate pledge, which seeks to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement 10 years early. 13 WREX asked to one resident living in Lee County what he thought of Amazon, a company with a net worth of nearly a trillion dollars, investing in his community. "It's really important for the world to slowly transfer to renewable energy," Praaveenyan Vangara, a Dixon resident, said.