Amazon India to Install Solar Rooftops at Fulfilment, Sort Centres

In its global initiative to generate clean energy, e-commerce major Amazon India on Tuesday said it will install 8,000-kilowatt (kW) rooftop solar panels at its fulfilment centres and sortation sites in the country by year-end to make them self-sustaining. The company has so far installed close to 1,600 kW of solar power panels at its two fulfilment centres in Delhi and Hyderabad, it said in a statement.

It plans to expand the initiative to another five fulfilment centres and two sortation sites located in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Chennai, while further expanding existing capacity in Delhi. "By the end of 2018, we plan to expand this installation to an additional seven Amazon operations sites in India," said Akhil Saxena, vice-president, customer fulfilment, Amazon India.

With this deployment, Amazon India expects to generate solar energy close to 8,000 kW by the end of this year, according to the release. The investment in solar energy systems in India is in line with Amazon's vision to deploy solar systems on 50 fulfilment and sortation centres globally by 2020, it added.

Further, the company said it will plant 10,000 trees around its fulfilment centres in the coming weeks. Amazon India has also extended the initiatives to cover communities around the fulfilment centres, by setting up solar energy systems in four Amazon Cares Community and Resource Centres in Haryana, which provide solar power to support the community programs in these centres all year round, it said. The company has also donated solar energy systems to 19 government schools and one mini-planetarium in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, the release added.