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Tag: HQ2

Amazon to donate $9M to NoVa nonprofits

Marking the second anniversary of the news that it would brings its East Coast headquarters to Virginia, Amazon.com Inc. will donate $9 million to several nonprofits in Northern Virginia, the company announced Monday. The gifts include $3.5 million to community organizations supporting small businesses and military families and $3 million to nonprofit legal services groups that work on housing issues.

Friday was the two-year anniversary of Amazon’s announcement of its plans to build its HQ2 headquarters in Arlington’s new National Landing area. The $2.5 billion project is expected to employ 25,000 people in the next 15 years. Amazon has already hired more than 1,000 people for HQ2, with 500 more hires planned for 2021. Construction started in February on the first of two office towers in the 2.1 million-square-foot Metropolitan Park complex, which is set to open by 2023.

“It’s an understatement to say how proud we are to be part of National Landing,” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said in a statement. “To mark this milestone, we will donate $9 million to help support a broad range of local community organizations that make up the fabric of the diverse, vibrant region we now call home.”

According to the company, the donations are the result of community input and include the following gifts:

  • $3.5 million in gifts to community organizations across the region supporting sustainability, small businesses, military families and more; $750,000 will be given to each group
  • $3 million to Legal Services of Northern Virginia, Virginia Poverty Law Center, Bread for the City’s Legal Clinic and Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, with each receiving $750,000 for housing issues
  • $1 million to racial equity and community empowerment organizations, including Bridges to Independence, Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR) and the Arlington Branch NAACP Scholarship Program
  • $1 million to community health facilities, including the Arlington Free Clinic, Alexandria Neighborhood Health, Children’s National Hospital and the Virginia Hospital Center
  • $500,000 to literacy and workforce training programs in the region, including La Cocina VA, D.C. Central Kitchen’s culinary job training program and the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia

“This $3 million [housing] donation will quickly provide support to individuals and families who need help. Tenant rights are a particularly complicated issue right now, and families are facing innumerable challenges related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” Alice Shobe, director of Amazon in the Community, said in a statement.

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Amazon HQ2 and Arlington County government will be solar powered

Arlington County and Amazon.com Inc. have entered into agreements with Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. to purchase power for local government operations and Amazon’s HQ2 East Coast headquarters from a solar farm more than 200 miles away in Southern Virginia.

The Arlington County Board voted Tuesday to approve the agreement with Dominion to procure power from the solar farm Dominion is constructing in Pittsylvania County. Arlington County is expected to purchase approximately one-third of the solar farm’s output to power county government operations, while Amazon announced it will purchase the remaining output under a separate agreement to power HQ2, as well as other Amazon-owned properties around Virginia, including distribution centers and Whole Foods Market grocery stores.

The solar farm is anticipated to be operational by 2022.

Patrick Leonard, senior manager of Amazon’s renewable energy procurement team, led Amazon’s negotiations for the solar project. “My role working with the team in Arlington County involved sharing perspectives on how to strategically assess a renewable energy project that is right for a business or a government and the environment,” Leonard said in a statement. “Once this project is complete, we will continue to look for ways to advance our commitment to sustainability in Arlington.”

This project is part of Amazon’s commitment to The Climate Pledge, an Amazon-cofounded initiative that aims  to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals to mitigate climate change 10 years early. The pledge calls for signatory businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve net zero annual carbon emissions by 2040. 

The Dominion solar farm in Pittsylvania is expected to generate approximately 80% (79,000 megawatt-hours of energy) of Arlington County’s electric energy needs for local government operations, including powering county buildings, traffic signals and water pumping and wastewater treatment facilities. The county’s 2019 Community Energy Plan calls for using renewable energy sources to power at least 50% of county operations by 2022.

“This is a groundbreaking partnership for the county,” said Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey. “It will take us a long way toward our goal of 100% use of renewable sources for all electricity used in government operations by 2025.”

Under the new solar agreement with Dominion, the county will not have to pay any capital funding or upfront costs. Rather, the solar farm will generate electricity that Dominion will sell into the wholesale electric grid and charge at market rates. The county says that the solar project will not have any impact on current Dominion customer rates and the agreement was designed to be cost-neutral.

Dominion has more than seven million customers in 18 states and has more than $100 billion in assets.