Amazon took solar rooftops offline last year after fires, explosions

On the afternoon of April 14, 2020, dozens of firefighters arrived at an Amazon warehouse in Fresno, California, as thick plumes of smoke poured from the roof of the 880,000-square-foot warehouse.

Some 220 solar panels and other equipment at the facility, known as FAT1, were damaged by the three-alarm fire, which was caused by “an undetermined electrical event within the solar system mounted on top of the roof,” Leland Wilding, Fresno’s fire investigator, wrote in an incident report.

A little over a year later, about 60 firefighters were called to an even larger Amazon facility in Perryville, Maryland, to put out a two-alarm blaze, local news outlets reported. 

In the intervening months, at least four other Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions due to failures with their solar energy-generating systems, according to internal company documents viewed by CNBC.

The documents, which have never been made public, indicate that between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon experienced “critical fire or arc flash events” in at least six of its 47 North American sites with solar installations, effecting 12.7% of such facilities. Arc flashes are a kind of electrical explosion.

“The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable, and above industry averages,” an Amazon employee wrote in one of the internal reports.

The solar snafus underscore the challenge Amazon and many other large corporations face in their quest to shrink their environmental footprint and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Amazon has been among the most aggressive. In 2019, founder Jeff Bezos launched the Climate Pledge, promising the largest online retailer would zero out emissions by 2040, embrace renewable energy and move away from gas-guzzling delivery vans, including through a billion-dollar-plus investment in electric vehicle company Rivian.

Corporate America is under pressure from regulators and a growing subset of investors to set and report on environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.

Many will be able to reap financial rewards for renewable energy efforts after Congress in August passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes climate provisions projected to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030.

Commercial solar in the U.S. is expected to see 8% annual growth over the next five years, thanks in part to the legislation, according to Wood Mackenzie solar analyst Michelle Davis. Warehouses can take outsized advantage of solar, she said, because they have large roofs and the systems can power all the HVAC, refrigeration and other energy-heavy systems located inside.

But costly and dangerous issues can arise.