Avangrid Inc., a sustainable energy company and member of the Spanish multinational Iberdrola Group, announced the signing of a new power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon to source renewable energy from an Avangrid wind farm located in Gilliam County, Oregon. The Amazon Wind Farm Oregon — Leaning Juniper IIA will have a capacity of 98.4 MW. Amazon Wind Farm Oregon — Leaning Juniper IIA is a repowering project that will significantly extend the life of the existing wind farm and make it work more efficiently. Consisting of 40 turbines, the wind farm will produce enough energy to power 22,800 homes every year. During construction, the project will support about 200 jobs.
“Amazon is excited to announce our first utility-scale renewable energy project in Oregon,” said Abhishek Sharma, head of energy strategy for Amazon Web Services (AWS). “The project adds to the 2 GW of renewable energy capacity Amazon has already enabled across the western US grid. This has contributed to Amazon being the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for four years running and will help Amazon remain on a path to using 100% renewable energy for the electricity powering its operations by 2025.”
Avangrid has executed contracts to recycle all turbine blades that will be decommissioned with this project, estimated to divert more than 1000 tons (907 tonnes) of mass from landfill.
“Repowering represents a tremendous opportunity for Avangrid to capitalize on benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid chief executive officer. “Avangrid’s large existing onshore wind fleet will enable many more repowerings like this one over the next decade. In doing so, we take advantage of improving technologies to generate more renewable power more efficiently and extend the positive impact these projects deliver locally.”
Through the Avangrid Community Sponsorship Program, the wind farm has contributed to local libraries, pre-schools, and firefighters. Repowering the project through Amazon’s investment ensures this work can continue. The project has also paid more than US$11 million in local property taxes to date, supporting public services like education and safety, and these tax contributions will continue after repowering.
