Internet giant Amazon’s first Irish wind farm has gone online. The project in Esk, Cork, is the first of three utility-scale renewables projects which are being develop by Amazon.
Internet giant Amazon’s first Irish wind farm has gone online.
The project in Esk, Cork, is the first of three utility-scale renewables projects which are being develop by Amazon.
The company says it is the first ever wind farm to be built in Ireland without public subsidies and is expected to generate 68,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity to help power its Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres.
The company has also invested in wind farm projects in Galway and Donegal, both of which are due to become operational in 2022.
Landslide
However, the site of one of Amazon’s planned wind farms in Donegal drew controversy last May when a landslide displaced thousands of tonnes of peat and forestry, polluting the Mournebeg River.
Construction of its 91MW windfarm in Meenbog was due to be completed by the end of 2021, but was suspended after the landslide.
District heat
Amazon is also developing a custom-built district heating system, which will provide heat recycled from an AWS data centre to the public sector, residential and commercial residents in Tallaght, Co Dublin.
The project will begin supplying heat within the next 12 months.
In 2020, Amazon became the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world, having invested in 6,500MW of renewable power.
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