Sustainable Energy

Microsoft inks major wind power deal with Swedish utility firm Vattenfall

Pontus Lundhal | AFP | Getty Images

State-owned Swedish energy company Vattenfall has signed a 10-year deal to power Microsoft's international data center operations in the Netherlands using wind power.

Microsoft will receive all the energy output from a new onshore wind farm to be built approximately 40 kilometers north of Amsterdam, Vattenfall said in an announcement Thursday. The Wieringermeer wind farm will begin producing renewable energy from 2019, it said.

It was recently announced that Vattenfall would invest over 200 million euros ($233.06 million) to "repower and expand" the Wieringermeer facility, which will be home to 100 windmills. These will collectively generate around 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable electricity, equivalent to the consumption of roughly 370,000 homes.

In its own announcement, also released Thursday, Microsoft said that the wind farm would be built and operated by Nuon, part of Vattenfall.

"Investing in local clean energy to power our local data center is a win-win for our business and the Netherlands," Brian Janous, Microsoft's general manager of energy, said in a statement. "Microsoft is committed to bringing new renewable energy sources online to power our data centers."

Microsoft is one of many tech giants looking to embrace clean energy. In October, Amazon announced that its biggest wind farm to date was operational.

The business said that Amazon Wind Farm Texas, which is located in Scurry County, would add over 1 million megawatt hours of clean energy to the grid annually.