Amazon Web Services (AWS) has contracted with Iberdrola Renewables to construct and operate Amazon Wind Farm US East, a 208 MW wind farm located in Perquimans and Pasquotank counties, N.C.
When completed, it will be the first utility-scale wind farm in North Carolina, with the generated energy delivered into the electrical grid that supplies both current and future AWS Cloud data centers.
According to AWS, the new wind farm is expected to start generating approximately 670,000 MWh of wind energy annually starting December 2016.
The wind farm is the latest in a series of sustainability efforts since November 2014, when the company pledged to power its infrastructure with 100% renewable energy.
In June, for example, the company announced Amazon Solar Farm US East in Virginia, which is expected to generate 170,000 MWh of solar power annually.
In April, AWS announced that approximately 25% of the power consumed by its global infrastructure was from renewable energy sources with a goal of increasing that percentage to at least 40% by the end of 2016. Additionally, the company continues to launch projects that increase the availability of renewable energy resources on the electrical grids that supply power to current and future AWS Cloud data centers in Virginia and Ohio.
In January, Amazon announced a renewable project with the Amazon Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge) in Benton County, Ind., which is expected to generate 500,000 MWh of wind power annually. In April, Amazon announced a pilot of Tesla's energy storage batteries that are designed to help bridge the gap between intermittent production, from sources such as wind, and the data center's constant power demand.
‘This agreement, and those previously in place, puts AWS on track to surpass our goal of 40 percent renewable energy globally by the end of 2016,’ says Jerry Hunter, vice president of infrastructure at AWS. ‘We're far from being done.’
