Microsoft Signs Wind Power Deal For Power Data Center

By Czarina Ara Lasco

Nov 15, 2016 06:00 AM EST

With the purpose of completely powering its data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming through the use of renewable resources, Microsoft has recently announced that the company entered into a deal with two wind farms.

The deal was between Microsoft and Bloom Wind Farm in Kansas wherein 178 megawatts will be produced. More so, it has also contracted the Silver Sage and Happy Jack farms in Wyoming for an additional 59 megawatts.

These latest purchases bring Microsoft's total purchase of wind energy in the U.S. to more than 500 megawatts, which is in addition to the energy Microsoft purchases from the grid that comes from wind, solar and hydropower sources in the markets where the company operates.

For the previous years, Microsoft has already entered into several deals in connection with the use of clean energy. The company already has an agreement with a wind farm located in Illinois for 75 megawatts and another 100-megawatt deal with a farm in Texas. Combined, Microsoft Corp has already acquired 500 megawatts of energy from its deals from wind power sources.

More so, Microsoft has also proudly revealed that the backup generator in the site will only be used as a "secondary resource" for its local grid. It means that the corporation will basically deliver energy to the locale during the periods where demands are overwhelmingly high.

The said backup generators will burn natural gas. Interestingly, despite being a fossil fuel, nature gas is far less environmentally harmful than diesel.

Usually, load development or the overview of irregular generation when presented with a constraint on the system relating to reliability, a utility's only option is to construct new groundwork, such as new substations, power plants or transmission lines.

Basically, this is means greater costs to ratepayers. Nonetheless, Microsoft foresees a prospect where it and other customers carry their own resources to utilities, may it be new renewables, energy storage or even cloud technologies that enhance the usage patterns of customers to be able to create a lower-cost, more efficient and cleaner energy grid.

This latest deal between Microsoft and Bloom Wind Farm would attest to the fact that the biggest technology company in the world is on the right track. Microsoft looks forward that by 2018, it will use around 50 percent renewable energy.

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