Said to be the largest-of-its-kind in the region, the Amazon Solar Farm US East plant is planned to enter into service as early as October 2016. It is expected to generate approximately 170,000 megawatt hours (MWh) to serve 15,000 homes annually.
Power generated from Amazon Solar Farm US East will be used by AWS for its current and future Cloud datacenters under a long-term solar power purchase agreement (PPA).
The deal is expected to support AWS’s goal to meet 40% of its power requirements through from renewable energy sources by the end of 2016.
AWS infrastructure vice-president Jerry Hunter said: "We continue to make significant progress towards our long-term commitment to power the global AWS infrastructure with 100% renewable energy.
"Amazon Solar Farm US East – the second PPA that will serve both existing and planned AWS datacenters in the central and eastern US – has the added benefit of working to increase the availability of renewable energy in the Commonwealth of Virginia."
Earlier this year, the company signed a similar PPA with Amazon Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge) in Benton County, Indiana, US.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said: "Amazon’s new solar project will create good jobs on the Eastern Shore and generate more clean, renewable energy to fuel the new Virginia economy."
Community Energy CEO Brent Alderfer said: "This project, which wouldn’t have been possible without AWS’ leadership, helps accelerate the commercialization and deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies at scale in Virginia."
