Digital infrastructure company Equinix has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) totalling 151 megawatts (MW) with clean energy enterprise TagEnergy.
The PPA will see the construction of the $3 billion Golden Plains Wind Farm (GPWF), a significant project for the State of Victoria and considered to be Australia’s largest wind farm to date.
Situated in Golden Plains Shire approximately 60km northwest of Geelong, the project will feature 215 turbines with a capacity of approximately 6.2MW each.
Construction of GPWF – East, owned by TagEnergy (85%) and Ingka Investments (15%), part of Ingka Group, already commenced in Q1 2023.
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Stage one consists of 122 turbines with an expected annual production of over 2,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) or 756 MW. Equinix will take nearly 20% of the total energy generated by the GPWF – East.
When both stages of the 1,330MW project are completed, the Golden Plains Wind Farm will be capable of producing more than 4,000GWh of green energy annually. This is equivalent to the energy required to power every home in regional Victoria - more than 765,000 homes.
Once operational in 2029, Equinix claimed the deal will supply enough energy to the grid to cover Equinix’s 17 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres across Australia and help hit renewable targets.
Facilitated by EY and Energetics, the PPA is Equinix’s first long-term renewable energy agreement in the Asia Pacific region.
Based on current load projections, the Golden Plains Wind Farm is expected to provide the final 4% renewables target by 2030.
“This first PPA in Asia Pacific is a huge milestone for Equinix. It underscores our longstanding commitment to actively and meaningfully achieve Equinix’s global sustainability targets to drive positive change and foster a more sustainable future for data centres,” said Equinix managing director Australia Guy Danskine.
“This is the second PPA for stage one of our mega-project after Snowy Hydro purchased 40% of the energy and green certificates (LGCs) for stage one taking total contracted volume to 60%. We look forward to delivering clean energy to support Equinix to achieve its renewables targets as we work to accelerate the energy transition,” said TagEnergy managing partner Australia Andrew Riggs.
“To date, Equinix has executed 21 PPAs, adding more than one gigawatt of renewable energy across the US, Australia, France, Finland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden once projects are operational through to 2029,” said Equinix senior vice president global design and construction Diraj Bamola.
“Additionally, we also pioneer green building and design innovations throughout our data centres to do what it takes to address climate change,” he claimed.