Google Signs PPA for 189-Megawatt North Carolina Wind Farm

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
September 7, 2023

Apex Clean Energy and Google recently announced a power purchase agreement for the full 189-megawatt capacity of Timbermill Wind that Apex is building in North Carolina.

Apex said the power purchase agreement will contribute to the clean energy needs of Google’s data centers on PJM Interconnection’s grid.

The planned wind farm is expected to consist of up to 45 wind turbines installed in managed timberland and open farmland in rural Chowan County. The turbines would be spaced about one-quarter to on-half a mile apart, and each would require about half an acre of land.

Existing high-voltage power lines and highways would limit the need for new infrastructure, Charlottesville, Virginia-based Apex said, adding that landowners in the area would be able to continue to farm their land or harvest timber with limited disturbance.

The Timbermill Wind project has received all necessary permits from local, state, and federal jurisdictions and is moving forward with construction, Apex said. The company began construction work began in May and expects turbine deliveries in 2024 and full commercial operation in 2024-2025.

The Timbermill Wind would be the second utility scale wind farm in service in North Carolina.

The state’s first wind farm, the 208-MW Amazon Wind Farm US East, is operated by Avangrid Renewables in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties and entered service in 2017.

The power generated by the wind farm is delivered under a contract with Amazon Web Services into the electrical grid that supplies both current and future Amazon Web Services cloud data centers.