Amazon Web Services (AWS) said that it would add a further 180MW of solar PV power plants from five projects in Virginia to the grid before the end of 2017 as part of its strategy to of powering the AWS Cloud with 100% renewable energy.
The projects, Amazon Solar Farm US East 2, Amazon Solar Farm US East 3, Amazon Solar Farm US East 4, and Amazon Solar Farm US East 5 are individual facilities, each with a capacity of 20MW, located in New Kent, Buckingham, Sussex, and Powhatan counties respectively. Amazon Solar Farm US East 6 was said to be a 100MW facility in Southampton County, Virginia.
The company said that the projects were being developed by Virginia Solar and Community Energy Solar as well as an affiliate of Richmond-based Dominion Resources to own and operate the solar farms.
“We continue to ramp our sustainability efforts in areas where availability of renewable energy sources is low or proposed projects are stalled, and where the energy contribution goes onto the same electric grid that powers AWS data centers,” said Peter DeSantis, Vice President, Infrastructure, AWS. “By enabling 10 utility scale renewable projects in the US to date, we are well positioned to meet our latest goal of 50 percent renewable energy powering the AWS global infrastructure by the end of 2017.”
