Amazon Web Services has announced five new solar farms across Virginia which will provide renewable energy capacity to the company’s data centers, and make Amazon the largest corporate backer of solar projects east of the Mississippi River.
The five new solar farms will bring Amazon’s total number in Virginia up to six, totaling 260 MW, each of which is expected to be delivering electricity to the grid before the end of 2017.
Already in development is Amazon Solar Farm US East, an 80 MW facility in Accomack County, Virginia. This will be joined by Amazon Solar Farm US East 2, Amazon Solar Farm US East 3, Amazon Solar Farm US East 4, and Amazon Solar Farm US East 5, each with a capacity of 20 MW, located in New Kent, Buckingham, Sussex, and Powhatan counties respectively, and Amazon Solar Farm US East 6, a 100 MW facility in Southampton County, Virginia.
Together, the wind farms will generate more than 580,000 MWh of energy each year.
Amazon already has several renewable energy projects in the US. Already completed and generating electricity are the 150 MW Amazon Wind Farm Fowler Ridge in Indiana and the 80 MW Amazon Solar Farm US East in Virginia. They will soon be joined by the 208 MW Amazon Wind Farm US East in North Carolina, which is currently on track to be completed and delivering power to the grid by the end of the year.
“We continue to ramp our sustainability efforts in areas where availability of renewable energy sources is low or proposed projects are stalled, and where the energy contribution goes onto the same electric grid that powers AWS data centers,” said Peter DeSantis, Vice President, Infrastructure, AWS. “By enabling 10 utility scale renewable projects in the US to date, we are well positioned to meet our latest goal of 50% renewable energy powering the AWS global infrastructure by the end of 2017. That said, we are nowhere near done. We will continue to make progress toward our 100 percent goal and have many exciting initiatives planned.”
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