Bord na Móna and Amazon strike energy deal

State company Bord na Móna plans to spend “up to €1 billion” on a new venture that has lured data giant Amazon Web Services as its first major tenant.

Amazon Web Services and Bord na Móna confirmed on Tuesday that the multinational will build a data centre complex in the State company’s new energy park, making the US-headquartered group the venture’s anchor tenant.

Bord na Móna hopes to attract hi-tech, pharmaceutical, agri-food and other businesses to the park, straddling 3,000 hectares of its land in Co Offaly.

The company plans to build wind and solar farms, batteries, biomethane and green hydrogen processors in the park, specifically to attract businesses that consume large amounts of energy and want to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

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[ Gas Networks Ireland to connect Bord na Móna’s Edenderry power plant to its supply network ]

John Reilly, head of renewable energy at Bord na Móna, said it planned to invest up to €1 billion on the venture. Amazon has not said how much it will spend, but a large data centre complex is likely to cost upwards of €1 billion.

The pair billed the partnership as a “multibillion-euro investment” that would create jobs and bring significant economic benefit to the midlands, at Tuesday’s announcement.

They also confirmed that Amazon Web Services had agreed a power-purchase agreement to take electricity from Bord na Móna’s 105 mega watt Derrinlough wind farm in Co Offaly.

Mr Reilly said the company was already talking to other potential tenants, although he was not in a position to name them.

[ State will lose out over data centre plans, Amazon, Google and Microsoft warn ]

“All I can say is that we are talking to companies in pharmaceuticals, agri-food and in the manufacturing sector,” he added.

Mr Reilly explained that Bord na Móna would supply green electricity to tenants from wind and solar farms, batteries, biomethane and green hydrogen.

“The technology is already in place,” he noted, saying it was just a question of how those systems were combined to ensure that they supplied round-the-clock green energy.

[ Plan to spend €1bn on onshore wind farms capable of supplying electricity to 500,000 homes ]

Amazon Web Services supplies data storage to businesses ranging from smaller enterprises up to multinationals. It employs 4,500 people in the Republic while it calculates that its activities support about 6,000 jobs indirectly.

Lindsay McQuade, its director of energy for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said the Bord na Móna project was ideal for the group which wants to locate operations close to green power plants whose electricity it wants to use.

Tom Donnellan, chief executive of Bord na Móna, said that “as one of Ireland’s leading renewable energy providers” the company was committed to aiding businesses in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

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