Apple plans €400m investment for renewable energy development in Ireland

Apple is seeking renewable energy projects to power its planned €850m data centre at Athenry in Galway County, Ireland.

The data centre at Athenry will give back up to Apple’s services including iTunes, Maps and Siri and the facility is expected to need over 300MW power for its operations.

The firm intends setting up numerous projects, each of which will have a power generation capacity of 50MW.

The data centre will need power support from at least six renewable projects, reports The Irish Times.

Apple is likely to make a direct investment of over €400m for the Irish projects.

Though the type of renewable energy to be used for the initiative has not been specified, wind power developers are likely to be considered.

Apple said tht the projects which are located near Athenry will have an advantage.

The firm is likely to sign power purchase agreements (PPA) for the Galway facility, according to a tender on Ariba.com. It may buy the renewable facilities once those start generating power.

The PPAs are expected to be signed for 20 year duration.

Apple wants the project to be operational by 2017 or 2018. The firm is mainly looking for projects within the Republic of Ireland.