Amazon Web Services, the portion of the online retailer responsible for cloud storage, analytics and other services, announced plans to build a 100-megawatt wind farm in Paulding County, Ohio, which will be both constructed and operated by EDP Renewables.
The new facility, expected to start operations in May 2017, will be called the Amazon Wind Farm US Central.
In terms of output, Amazon Wind Farm US Central is expected to produce around 320,000 megawatt hours (MWh) annually once it's up and running. According to Amazon, which uses power consumption data from 2012, that's enough energy to power 29,000 homes. The idea here is that Amazon is looking to pump renewable energy into the local power grids near its data centers to offset the large electrical footprint of its facilities.
The Amazon Wind Farm US Central marks the fourth major renewable energy effort from the online retailer's Amazon Web Services in 2015. Its renewable energy efforts so far, which include the Amazon Solar Farm US East in Virginia and the Amazon Wind Farm US East in North Carolina, are expected to generate a grand total 1.6 million megawatt hours (MWh) for local grids once they're all operational. Using the same data as before, that's about enough energy for 150,000 homes when all is said and done.
"Our previously announced renewable energy projects put AWS on track to surpass our goal of 40 percent renewable energy globally by the end of 2016," said Jerry Hunter, vice president of infrastructure at Amazon Web Services, in a press release about the project. "This latest project, Amazon Wind Farm US Central, pushes our renewable energy percentage ever higher."
As the required energy for the company's services continues to grow, it's likely that it will continue to invest in renewable energy—especially if its goal of keeping 40 percent of what it uses as renewable energy remains in place. As time goes on, it's not impossible that Amazon could itself become a larger player in the renewable energy market in much the same way as its involved in other venues.
Source: Business Wire
