Amazon.com to build wind farm in Indiana

Amazon.com Inc. said it is building a wind farm in Indiana to offset the power used by its data centers.

The facility will be constructed by Amazon and Pattern Energy Group, and should come online as early as 2016, the Seattle Times reported.

{mosads}It’ll generate about 500,000 megawatts annually for the online retail giant, enough to power 46,000 homes.

The wind power will go into the electric grid to offset the power used by Amazon Web Services data centers, which are used by major companies like Netflix and Pinterest.

The wind farm “will bring a new source of clean energy to the electric grid where we currently operate a large number of data centers and have ongoing expansion plans to support our growing customer base,” Jerry Hunter, a vice president of Amazon Web Services, said in a statement to the Times.

Amazon signed a 13-year agreement to lock in prices for the power, which is usually more expensive than traditional energy sources. It did not disclose the cost of the wind farm or the power.

Environmentalists have criticized Amazon for years for depending on traditional energy sources like coal to power its data centers, which use massive amounts of power.

Greenpeace campaigner David Pomerantz told the Times that the wind deal is a sign that Amazon is sticking to the promise it made in November to work toward 100 percent renewable energy use.