E-commerce giant Amazon is to invest in a wind farm in county Cork.

This is the company’s second renewable energy development in Ireland, with the other farm located in Donegal.

Once complete, the new wind farm will provide 23.2 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity, and is expected to generate 68,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy each year.

The developer and owner of the windfarm is Invis Energy.

Amazon will offtake 100pc of the energy from the project, which will be online in September 2020.

"Playing a significant role in helping to reduce the sources of human-induced climate change is an important commitment for Amazon," said Kara Hurst, director of sustainability at Amazon, said.

"Major investments in renewable energy are a critical step to address our carbon footprint globally. We will continue to invest in these projects, and look forward to additional investments this year and beyond."

Elsewhere, the group is also developing a renewable energy project in the United States, which will be located in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

The two projects will supply to the company’s Amazonweb services datacenters.

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton, said: "This project is another example of Amazon’s commitment to renewable projects in Ireland, adding clean energy to the grid, and supporting Ireland’s climate commitments."

"Construction will begin on this project this year and will start contributing to Ireland’s renewable energy capacity by 2020. We look forward to continuing to work with Amazon as we strive to make Ireland a leader in the renewable energy space."

The news was welcomed by IDA Ireland.

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