Amazon signs PPA for third Irish wind project

Amazon has signed a corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) for the 115MW Ardderroo onshore wind farm in Ireland, which will be built without subsidy by 2022.

Amazon will offtake the entire output of the farm, located in Galway. It already has similar arrangements for the 23MW Esk wind farm in Cork, due on line next month, and the 90MW Meenbog farm in Donegal, due to come on line in early 2022.

All three farms as a result can be built without subsidy, Amazon said.

The company said it will announce more renewable projects in Ireland in line with its goal of being 100pc powered by renewable energy by 2025, and carbon neutral by 2040.

The energy procured will be used in the data centres of the firm's cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services.

Irish transmission system operator Eirgrid expects data centres to be the main drivers of power demand growth in Ireland in the 2020s. Most multinational technology companies already have a large presence in Ireland, and the cool climate is attractive for data centres, which have high cooling costs.

Eirgrid forecasts peak demand in Ireland to rise to 6.54GW in 2028 from 5.35GW in 2019, it said in its most recent 10-year capacity statement. Peak demand in Northern Ireland is forecast to rise more slowly to 1.84GW by 2028, from 1.71GW in 2019.

Ireland recently awarded subsidies to 479MW of onshore wind projects and 796MW of solar in the first renewable electricity support scheme auctions.

Ireland has set a target of 70pc renewable electricity by 2030, and for 15pc of power supply to be from renewables contracted by corporate PPAs. This would require the equivalent of around 2GW of onshore wind to be covered by corporate PPAs, consultancy Baringa said earlier this year.

By Killian Staines