Iron Mountain Inc., a storage and information management services provider, has signed a wind power purchase agreement (PPA) that will leverage renewable energy sources to power as much as 30% of its North American electricity footprint.
According to Iron Mountain, that capacity will be enough to power all of its Texas operations, which include more than 75 facilities, and some operations in additional states, too, providing long-term rate stability with as much as $1.5 million annually in related cost avoidance.
When completed in 2017, Iron Mountain’s share of the wind farm could produce up to 100,000 MWh per year – the equivalent of nearly one-third its power consumption for North America.
Under the PPA, Iron Mountain will purchase 10% of the energy produced at the Amazon Wind Farm Texas, a 253 MW 110+ turbine wind farm in Scurry County, Texas, developed by Lincoln Clean Energy, a developer, owner and operator of clean power projects with a particular focus on wind and solar power in the U.S.
“Power consumption is an expensive and resource-consuming part of our global operational footprint and one of the areas we’ve targeted as an opportunity to transform our business,” said Ty Ondatje, senior vice president of corporate responsibility and chief diversity officer for Iron Mountain.
“Renewable energy strategies, along with energy efficiency, are at the heart of our efforts to deliver both savings back to the company and look for opportunities to innovate,” he continued. “We believe that renewable energy strategies can benefit our business, positioning Iron Mountain and our customers to meet the growing expectations for sustainable business practices.”
This purchase, coupled with the company’s recent signing of a 15-year agreement with a wind farm in Ringer Hill, Pa., as well as ongoing investments in solar projects throughout the U.S. and Canada, has positioned Iron Mountain to be able to utilize renewable sources for two-thirds of its total North American electricity load by 2018.
In addition, Iron Mountain is teaming with other corporations and nonprofit organizations to support renewable energy market transformation, recently becoming a signatory to the Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers Principals, a joint effort of the World Wildlife Fund and the World Resources Institute, and has joined The Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewable Center, an independent initiative with a community of over 150 organizations providing resources, tools and best practices for companies seeking to execute renewable energy transactions.
Photo courtesy of Iron Mountain
