Amazon.com Inc., the America-based e-commerce giant, has announced it will buy 229 MW of wind power from three wind farms in the US, Sweden, and Ireland as part of the company’s long-term aspiration to power the worldwide infrastructure of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) with 100% renewable energy.
Like Amazon, many tech companies are looking at using renewable energy for their power-hungry infrastructure. As wind power is now a mature technology, with economical production costs and established lubricants like those from Mobil UK distributors, it is frequently a good option for powering data centres.
The three wind farms in question include a 47 MW one in Tehachapi, California; a 91 MW facility in Backhammar, Sweden; and a 91.2 MW plant in Donegal, Ireland. The three projects combined should generate over 670,000 MWh of electricity each year. When combined with nine existing renewable energy projects, this will take the company’s AWS annual generation capacity to over 2.7 million MWh.
The vice president of global infrastructure and customer support at Amazon Web Services, Peter DeSantis, pointed out how these facilities are well-located to supply power to Amazon’s data centres in the three countries. He also said:
“Each of these projects brings us closer to our long-term commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy to power our global AWS infrastructure.”
The US and Swedish wind farms should begin operations by the end of next year, while the Irish project in Donegal is expected to take a year longer.
