Sweden chosen by Amazon Web Services as renewable energy project location

Sweden will be the location for an Amazon Web Services (AWS) wind farm, which will support the tech giant’s aim to have renewable energy powering 100% of global its infrastructure.

The project, which will also have wind farms in Ireland and the US, aims to generate will deliver over 229MW of power.

More than 50% of AWS’s power was generated through renewable energy in 2018, but AWS wants this to reach 100%.

AWS said it will buy 91MW of power from a new wind farm in Bäckhammar, Sweden, which is expected to deliver renewable energy by the end of 2020.

“Sweden has long been known for ambitious renewable energy goals, and this new wind farm showcases both our country’s leadership and AWS’s commitment to renewable energy,” said Anders Ygeman, minister for energy and digital development in Sweden.

“This is a significant step in Sweden’s renewable energy production as we work toward our target of 100% renewable energy by 2040.”

AWS said the three projects will support its long-term commitment to use 100% renewable energy to power its global infrastructure.

Peter DeSantis, vice-president of global infrastructure at AWS, said: “These projects are well-positioned to serve AWS datacenters in Ireland, Sweden and the US. We expect more projects in 2019 as we continue toward our goal of powering all AWS global infrastructure with renewable energy.”

AWS has invested heavily in its Swedish infrastructure. Its first datacentre there was built in Eskilstuna, and two more datacentres have been built in Västerås and Katrineholm.

The Nordic region is a popular location for datacenters with the availability of renewable energy, the cool climate and incentives from governments.

Amazon’s demand for sustainable, low-cost green energy to power its Nordic datacentres is mirrored by other global heavyweights Apple, IBM, Google and Facebook. Apple is building datacentres in Viborg and Aabenraa, while Facebook is constructing a mega-datacentre in Odense.