Renewable energy sources recorded a different victory when Amazon signed contracts to buy 476 Megawatt wind and solar energy on the Iberian peninsula.
The Power Purchen agreements with multinational utility Iberdrola should help Amazon feed new data centers that has planned in the region. Last May the company said it would invest $ 17 billion In infrastructure projects, including data centers, in Spain.
Amazon’s power account has risen lately because it adds data centers to tackle with the increasing demand for AI and cloud services.
One of the projects that Amazon buys – the Tâmega Windpark – is being built in addition to a huge hydroelectric dam system in Portugal. The complex consists of a total of three dams, one of which is an 880 megawatt pumped dam.
Pumped storage facilities have two reservoirs, a higher height, one lower. When power is needed, water is released from the upper reservoir to spin turbines. When there is surplus power, massive pumps move water from the lower reservoir to the upper. Pumped storage is in fact a huge battery.
The 274 megawatt of wind turbines installed in Tâmega will feed power on the grid through the existing connection of the hydro complex, and when there is excess, it can be used to pump water to the upper reservoir. Such hybrid installations ensure that the power can be used consistently to the grid by otherwise intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.
Amazon also buys part of the power of more typical wind and solar plants in northwestern Spain. Last year the company was the largest buyer of renewable power.
Technology companies have purchased strength from renewable projects at a reasonably consistent pace, partly driven by how quickly and cheaply wind, solar and batteries can be installed. Last month, Meta said that it had signed two major solar energy deals, and Microsoft and Google previously announced that they supported each renewable investments of multi-billion dollars.