Under the deal, Microsoft will purchase the energy output from Vattenfall’s wind farm, which is planned to be constructed near Microsoft’s data center in the Netherlands.
Vattenfall’s local subsidiary Nuon will repower and expand the Wieringermeer onshore wind farm to 180MW by 2019 and 295 MW by 2020.
Microsoft’s datacenter operations in the Netherlands serve as a regional hub to deliver Microsoft Cloud services to customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as global customers.
Vattenfall president and CEO Magnus Hall said: “We are very glad and proud to be able to support Microsoft’s transition toward using fossil-free energy in its datacenter operations.
“This deal is completely in line with our strategy to help all our customers power their lives in ever smarter ways and free from fossil fuel within one generation.”
Scheduled to be commissioned in 2019, the wind farm will generate approximately 1.3TWh of clean electricity.
Microsoft Microsoft cloud infrastructure and operations general manager Christian Belady said: “This is Microsoft’s second wind energy project in Europe, closely following a new Irish wind farm announced about a month ago.
“Once completed, this wind project will bring Microsoft’s total global direct procurement in renewable energy projects to almost 800MW.”
Recently, Vattenfall announced plans to invest more than €200m to repower and expand the Wieringermeer wind farm, which is expected to be one of the biggest of its kind in the Netherlands.
