Microsoft has signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to procure energy from a wind farm in Ireland.
SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland this week announced Microsoft has entered into a long-term deal to offtake the output of the newly commissioned Lenalea Wind Farm near Letterkenny, County Donegal.
"At Microsoft, we are committed to playing our part in supporting the decarbonization of energy grids in markets in which we operate data centers,” said Eoin Doherty, VP EMEA regional leader, Microsoft Cloud operations + innovation.
“With the Lenalea Wind Farm achieving commercial operations, we are taking another important step on our journey to achieve 100 percent renewable energy supply and support wider efforts to add clean energy capacity to Ireland’s energy grid."
The 30MW onshore wind farm consists of seven Vestas V117-4.3MW turbines. The €40 million ($43m) site began commercial operations in December 2023 and is the first project delivered by FuturEnergy Ireland, a joint venture between energy firm ESB and the Irish state-owned forestry service, Coillte.
"Securing our first long-term corporate PPA for new onshore wind in Ireland is a satisfying milestone for SSE Renewables and our development partner FuturEnergy Ireland,” said Stuart Donnelly, director of corporate PPAs at SSE Renewables.
“We are pleased to support Microsoft’s climate and renewable energy goals, while delivering a meaningful contribution to Ireland’s energy targets and security of supply.”
SSE said this announcement is additional to the 900MW PPAs in Ireland Microsoft announced in November 2022. Of that 900MW capacity, more than 216MW of onshore wind and solar energy projects have reached commercial operation, with a further 250MW due to reach commercial operation this year.
This week Microsoft signed a $10 billion, 10GW renewable energy framework deal to finance a number of wind and solar projects across Europe and the US over the next six years.
