Software giant Microsoft is taking a step closer to becoming greener with its latest purchase of the 175 MW Pilot Hill Wind Project wind farm in Illinois.

Robert Bernard announced the 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with EDF Renewable Energy on Microsoft’s Green Blog and said it will be funded in part by its proceeds from Microsoft’s carbon fee – which it announced in 2012.

In 2012 Microsoft also announced the adoption of its “Carbon Neutral by 2013” plan where it aimed to become more proactive in managing its energy-related environmental footprint.

The Microsoft carbon fee charges its business units located in more than 100 countries an internal fee for the right to emit greenhouse gases.

In April this year Microsoft scored C’s across the board in Greenpeace’s Clicking Clean: How Companies are Creating the Green Internet study.

The study focused on how internet companies generate the electricity for their data centers.

Microsoft scored 29% in the Clean Energy Index category and revealed 32% of its energy was generated from coal.


Microsoft's scorecard in Greenpeace's Clicking Green study

This is the company’s second PPA, following its purchase of the 110 MW Keechi Wind Project in Texas last November – the latest wind farm is nearly 60% bigger.

The Keechi wind farm is on the same electrical grid that powers Microsoft’s San Antonio data center and includes 55 wind turbines.

The wind farm is in construction and is expected to begin delivering green power as of next year.

The agreement with EDF Renewable Energy is expected to see Microsoft purchase up to an estimated 675,000 MWh of renewable energy from its Pilot Hill Wind Project each year - the equivalent of powering 70,000 homes in Illinois.

Microsoft said its Chicago data center draws power from the Illinois power grid so the Pilot Hill farm will help to provide a non-polluting source of energy that displaces greenhouse gas emissions from conventional power and will bring renewable energy back onto the grid.

Construction of the Pilot Hill wind farm has started and it is expected to start delivering green power by next year.

The company said its commitment to green power is now included in its Global Public Policy Agenda and extends to its data centers and offices.

Microsoft’s data center in San Antonio, Texas uses recycled waste water for cooling and its Quincy, Washington facility uses hydropower as its primary source of energy.

Bernard states over the last fiscal year Microsoft has purchased more than 3bn KWh of green power, which he said is equivalent to 100% of the company’s global electrical use.

“We know that we still have work to do, and we will continue to pursue energy efficiency and clean energy projects, from smarter buildings to more efficient data centers,” Bernard said.

“The Pilot Hill Wind Project is another major step to continue our drive to reduce our environmental footprint and to be carbon neutral.”

Greenpeace's senior energy campaigner David Pomerantz said the purchase shows Microsoft is intending to compete in the race among cloud companies to power their operations with renewable energy.

“Microsoft‘s large purchases of wind energy in Illinois and Texas, taken alongside the commitments by cloud competitors Rackspace and Google to power their respective operations with 100 % renewable energy highlight the failure by Amazon Web Services to reach even the starting line in the race to build a clean cloud and green internet," Pomerantz said.

"As other companies move to embrace solar and wind, AWS risks losing business from customers that are beginning to expect their cloud to be powered by renewable energy”.