Amazon to use wind to power data centres

Amazon is set to use wind to power its data centres forming its giant global network after announcing a commitment to use renewables last year.

Amazon Web Services has announced a partnership with Pattern Energy Group to support the construction and operation of a 150 megawatt wind farm in Indiana, US. The wind farm is expected to generate enough electricity to power 46,000 homes from January 2016 and will be used to help power both current and future Amazon cloud data centres.

“Amazon Web Services Wind Farm will bring a new source of clean energy to the electric grid where we currently operate a large number of data centres and have ongoing expansion plans to support our growing customer base,” said vice president of infrastructure Amazon, Jerry Hunter.

“This power purchase agreement helps to increase the renewable energy used to power our infrastructure in the US and is one of the many sustainability activities and renewable energy projects for powering our data centres that we currently have in the worlds.”

In November last year, Amazon announced a long-term commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy usage for the global Amazon Web Services infrastructure footprint. The new wind farm has been described as an “important step” towards this goal. The company now offers customers three regions that are carbon-neutral, including Frankfurt in the EU.

The move follows technology giant Apple using renewable energy to power its data centres, as has eBay, demonstrating that businesses are increasingly looking at their environmental footprint and recognising the benefits of renewable energy.

Photo:  lamoix via Flickr 

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