Tag Archives: data centers

Could Facebook Spread The Solar Gospel Throughout The South?

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Facebook has had some public relations setbacks lately, but one of the items on its long-term agenda that consistently gets it good press is the fact that it has started demanding clean energy – specifically solar – power its energy-intensive data centers.

In Virginia, for example, Dominion Energy had to create an entirely new type of agreement and build several solar farms so the state would be considered as a potential site for one of the data centers. We’ve seen these developments across the country, and it’s one of the unalloyed goods that Facebook has done.

So the question becomes: Could Facebook spread the solar gospel to other southern states? A recent agreement in Georgia provides some evidence that the answer to the question could be yes.

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Walton Electric Membership Corporation (EMC), a consumer-owned utility with a reputation for energy innovation, has executed contracts with two solar developers for three new solar projects as part of its agreement to supply 100 percent renewable energy for Facebook’s data center in Newton County, Georgia. The collaboration is the largest solar development project in Georgia.

Facebook chose Walton EMC as the power supplier for the Newton Data Center when it announced the 970,000 square foot facility in March.

Silicon Ranch and Strata Solar will construct world-class solar power plants that will support the new data center. The facilities will be located in Southwest Georgia.

“We are thrilled to be working with Walton EMC, Silicon Ranch and Strata Solar to bring more than 200 megawatts (mW) of new solar resources to Georgia,” said Rachel Peterson, vice president of data center strategy for Facebook. “We are committed to supporting all of Facebook’s operations with 100 percent renewable energy, and these new solar facilities will help us meet that goal for our Newton Data Center. Developing these resources within the same electric grid that supports our data center will bring even more investment to the region.”

The Newton Data Center is Facebook’s ninth such state-of-the-art facility in the country. The centers are among the most advanced, energy-efficient facilities in the world. They use 38 percent less electricity than the average data center.

Microsoft Turns Singapore Into Its Own Solar Central

 

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: Microsoft, in an interview with Greentech Media, explained why it was turning to approximately 60 MW of distributed solar to power its data centers in Singapore. Essentially:

  • The company said it had been burned before when it tried to build utility-scale solar projects in other countries, thanks to permitting issues and other local constrictions.
  • The limited land in Singapore to build a large-scale solar plant left them with one option that the city-state has in abundance: rooftop space.
Singapore skyline distributed solar

Singapore’s skyline will have more rooftop distributed solar to power Microsoft’s data centers in the city-state.

SolarWakeup’s View: Microsoft, which doesn’t even appear on the Top 10 Businesses for solar in the United States, has decided to make a splash in Singapore by commissioning 60 MW of rooftop solar to power its data centers, Greentech Media reports.

Why distributed solar instead of the typical utility-scale solar plants it would fund? Well, the answer to that is simple – there’s just not enough land to do it properly.

After all, the city-state is only 277 square miles, total. And what land area it does have is densely packed with skyscrapers. Even if it wanted to do so, Microsoft would find it difficult to find enough open land to build a solar farm big enough to keep up with their data centers’ rapacious demand for energy.

Secondly, with distributed solar on the rooftops of downtown buildings, Microsoft runs less risk of the entire project going belly-up as they have seen in other countries in which they do business. This gives the massive software conglomerate the ability to control its own electrical future.

Microsoft’s solution to its land problem should hearten U.S. business that want to go solar but don’t feel as if they could find the space to build a solar project big enough to power their operations. New York City is already figuring this out, and maybe Microsoft can set the example other large corporations in the United States can follow to make their own solar dreams come true.

More:

Why Is Microsoft Getting Into Rooftop Solar?