Enterprise IT vendor HP has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for 112 megawatts (MW) of wind power with renewable energy company SunEdison.
The 112 MW of wind electricity can power 100 percent of HP’s Texas-based data center operations, and will avoid the emission of more than 340,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The deal will allow HP to reach its 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goal by the end of FY15, five years ahead of schedule. That goal originally aimed to reduce total GHG emissions from its operations (Scope 1 and Scope 2) by 20 percent of 2010 levels by 2020.
The 1.5 million square feet of Texas data center operations support HP’s internal global information technology (IT) requirements and the delivery of IT services to a portion of HP customers. HP currently operates five data centers in Texas, located in Houston, Hockley, Plano, and two in Austin.
This is the first utility-scale renewable energy purchase by HP, and illustrates the company’s approach to developing a sustainable cloud. That approach includes innovating breakthrough energy-optimized technology such as HP Moonshot servers, deploying the world’s most efficient data centers such as the EcoPod240a, and advancing the quantity of renewable power supply available to the grid.
HP’s commitment to purchase this power has enabled SunEdison to begin construction on the South Plains II wind farm in Texas, which when completed will generate 300 MW of power. The wind farm is expected to create more than 400 local construction jobs and up to 15 permanent jobs once the project is completed.
The wind farm is on the Call Right Project List for TerraForm Power, a global perator of clean energy power plants. TerraForm Power intends to acquire this asset once operational in 2016. Operation and maintenance of the wind power plant will be performed by SunEdison Services, which provides global 24/7 asset management, monitoring, and reporting services.
