Microsoft today announced a partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia and Dominion Virginia Power, the aim of which is to bring a significant amount of solar energy to the people of Virginia. The trio of powers is coming together to build the Remington solar farm, which is going to be a massive help to both the state of Virginia and Microsoft. The project is going to be producing 20 megawatts of clean energy, and adding another notch to the tech giant’s proverbial carbon neutrality belt.
Dominion Virginia Power had already tried to get this plant built, having their proposal rejected by the state of Virginia in October of last year. This rejection requested that third party funding options be sought out before they attempt to refile. This third party support happened to manifest in the form of Microsoft, who got the state of Virginia to agree to the construction of the solar farm.
While clean energy is nothing new for Microsoft, the way that this project is going is pretty new territory. The company is going to be helping Dominion cover the costs of building the solar farm, but once it’s finished they’ll be “retiring these green attributes to maximize the positive environmental impact overall.” Essentially, once Microsoft claims the “green attributes,” they’ll be pulling out and letting the people of Virginia reap the rewards of clean energy connected to their grid.
This deal serves to help provide Microsoft with some resources, but it seems like it’s mostly there to improve environmental sustainability. In Microsoft’s own words, they plan to “provide the long-term certainty needed to expand the amount of renewable energy available on the grid.”
