Amazon plans to develop a windfarm in northwest Ohio to help power a $1 billion project to build three data centers near Columbus for its web services subsidiary.

PAULDING, Ohio (AP) - Amazon plans to develop a windfarm in northwest Ohio to help power a $1 billion project to build three data centers near Columbus for its web services subsidiary.

The 48 wind turbines are expected to be built in Paulding County in northwest Ohio and will generate up to 100 megawatts of electricity, The Blade newspaper reported (bit.ly/1Sxc3Rg).

“It's great to have them in northwest Ohio,” said Jerry Zielke, director of Paulding County Economic Development Inc. “It's a growing company and I don't see them slowing down at this point. We welcome them.”

The e-commerce retail giant hasn't said how much the wind project is expected to cost, economic development officials estimated that the wind farm would cost between $175 million and $200 million. Amazon hasn't set a start date for construction, but is pushing to have the site running by May 2017.

A company spokesman declined to comment beyond the announcement.

The wind farm plans represent that latest project announced in Ohio by the company over the last year.

Amazon first announced last spring plans to build three data centers near Columbus to provide cloud storage, database and analytic services through Amazon Web Services. Six months later, officials announced that Amazon would also open two fulfillment centers in central Ohio. Those would total more than 1.8 million square feet and employ about 2,000 people.

The Paulding County project will be Amazon Web Services' third wind farm. The company has put a high emphasis on using electricity from renewable sources for its services.

“We continue to pursue projects that help to develop more renewable energy sources to the grids that power AWS data centers and bring us closer to achieving our long term goal of powering our global infrastructure with 100 percent renewable energy,” Jerry Hunter, vice president of infrastructure at Amazon Web Services, said at the time of the announcement.

The company expects to surpass a goal of using 40 percent renewable energy globally by the end of the year, Hunter said.

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