'Unprecedented': Amazon buys most power from giant new offshore wind farm that tech giants love
US group joins fellow behemoth Google as buyer of output from Moray West off Scotland
Amazon will take 473MW-worth of power from the Moray West project off Scotland, in what was described as an “innovative and unprecedented” route to market for offshore wind power.
The US corporation signed a corporate power purchase agreement with Engie, which is marketing the power from the 882MW wind farm due to enter service later this year.
The deal with Amazon means Moray West now has the vast majority of its output committed under deals with tech giants, which are increasingly turning to corporate PPAs to help meet green energy commitments at their power-hungry data centre fleets.
Developer Ocean Winds – a joint venture between Engie and Ocean Winds – had already sold 100MW of the output to Google, which will use part of that capacity to help green a new $1bn data centre in southern England.
Amazon – the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy – said the Moray West agreement will help it meet its goal to cover all its operations with clean power deals by 2025.
Moray West – which will use 14.7MW Siemens Gamesa turbines for the first time anywhere in the world – is being built on a fast-track construction schedule set in train in 2021.
Bautista Rodriguez, CEO at Ocean Winds, said the deal with Amazon represents “an innovative and unprecedented route to market for an offshore wind farm. The programme for delivery of the power for Amazon is ambitious but the project and sponsor boards have supported us to keep the project firmly on track.”
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