Amazon to invest in renewables firm Pattern Energy

Amazon's cloud computing services company, Amazon Web Services (AWS), will partner with Pattern Energy Group to expand an existing wind farm in Indiana, to power all its operations its operations.

According to TechCruch, the Fowler Ridge project would be expected to produce by 2016 around 500,000 MWh of energy annually - enough to power about 46,000 US homes -  to power Amazon's AWS data centres.

According to Amazon Web Services officials, the plan was in addition to three other ''carbon-neutral regions'' it already had in Oregon, the EU and through its US government project AWS GovCloud.

''Amazon Web Services Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge) will bring a new source of clean energy to the electric grid where we currently operate a large number of datacenters and have ongoing expansion plans to support our growing customer base,'' Jerry Hunter, vice president of infrastructure at Amazon Web Services, said in a statement.

''Our agreement on Amazon Web Services Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge) is part of our long-term commitment to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy to power the AWS global infrastructure,'' said Hunter. ''With agreements like this we're increasing the amount of clean energy we consume while helping enable the construction of new renewable energy facilities.''

The two companies have signed a 13-year PPA.

Mike Garland, president and CEO of Pattern Energy said in the past 18 months it had acquired four projects from Pattern Development with an aggregate owned capacity of 557 MW and also added an additional five projects, including Amazon Web Services Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge), with an aggregate capacity of 553 MW.