ScottishPower brings online 50-MW Amazon-backed wind farm

ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) has put in operation the 50-MW Beinn an Tuirc 3 onshore wind farm on the Kintyre peninsula in southwest Scotland, which has a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN).

The 14-turbine wind park is ScottishPower’s biggest one built without a government support scheme. This is also Amazon’s first operational renewable energy project in the UK, according to a statement published on Thursday.

Beinn an Tuirc 3 is connected to the UK grid and generates green electricity equivalent to the needs of about 46,000 homes.

The wind farm's output will be used by US e-commerce giant to power data centres for its cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS) as well as for Amazon corporate offices and fulfilment centres throughout the UK.

"Amazon is on a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of schedule. We are excited that our first Scottish wind farm is now contributing to that goal, and we have three more large-scale renewable projects in development across the UK," Amazon UK country manager John Boumphrey said.

ScottishPower has operated the Beinn an Tuirc site since 2001, with the current wind farm being an extension to the existing 64-turbine 73.4-MW second phase. Construction on Beinn an Tuirc 3 began in September 2019.

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