Facebook has signed an agreement with Brookfield Renewable Partners for a Tipperary wind farm as part of a major international project to buy clean power to support its operations globally.
The social media giant, which is already one of the world’s biggest corporate consumers of renewable energy, has signed contracts to buy 806 megawatts of additional solar and wind power in total for deals covering eight projects, most of which are in the US. The contracts have been signed with a number of developers, including Brookfield, DE Shaw Renewable Investments and Apex Clean Energy.
The deal with Brookfield is for a new onshore wind farm known as Lisheen III, which upon completion in 2022 will have a renewable capacity of 28.8 megawatts and the capability to generate enough electricity to supply 20,000 homes each year. This is equivalent to a saving of 32,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
The new project will be located adjacent to Brookfield Renewable’s existing developments at Lisheen, Co Tipperary.
Funding generation
Corporate power-purchase agreements, such as the one agreed between Facebook and Brookfield, are mechanisms that enable large companies to build or help fund off-site renewable energy generation, such as a wind farm.
In 2016, the two companies announced a long-term supply deal under which Brookfield agreed to provide 100 per cent renewable wind energy to the tech gian for its international headquarters in Dublin and to its data centre in Clonee, Co Meath, which is under construction.
Globally, Facebook is looking to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint by 75 per cent and to reach 100 per cent renewable energy use in 2020. The company’s operations in Ireland are already at this level with the new project intended to bolster this further. – Additional reporting: Bloomberg
