Technology giant Microsoft has agreed to buy 100 percent of the power generated by Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall’s new 180MW onshore wind farm to be built in The Netherlands.
As per, the ten-year agreement signed by the parties, the power from the repowered and expanded Wieringermeer Wind Farm will be supplied to Microsoft’s international data centre operations, located near Amsterdam.
The wind farm to be built at Wieringermeer Polder, 60km north of Amsterdam is slated to enter operations from 2019 after breaking ground next year.
Nuon, a subsidiary of Vattenfall construct and operate the wind farm which will see older wind mills replaced with latest wind technology.
Microsoft energy general manager Brian Janous said: “Microsoft is committed to bringing new renewable energy sources online to power our data centres.
“By focusing on local projects, we’re able to create new economic opportunities, reduce carbon emissions and make progress on our global commitment to increase the amount of clean energy used to power the Microsoft Cloud.”
Recently, Vattenfall announced an investment of over €200m for the Wieringermeer wind farm which is expected to have 100 wind mills following the expansion project. Put together, the wind mills will be capable of generating around 1.3TWh of renewable power which can cover about 370,000 households.
The additional generation capacity at the wind farm will be available only after 2020. Following this, Wieringermeer is anticipated to reach a total capacity of 295MW.
Vattenfall customers & solutions senior vice president Martijn Hagens said: “Our business customers, including the tech business, increasingly use wind or solar power to meet their renewable targets.
“We are ready to support customers in this ambition through a wide range of products – in this case by combining our own green production and energy solutions to help Microsoft deliver green IT.”
