Wednesday 20 November 2013

New Facebook data centre powered by wind energy

Facebook has announced plans to supply its new data centre in the United States with 100% renewable energy.

The electricity for the Altoona data centre (pictured) will come from a nearby wind farm in Wellsburg, Iowa which will be owned and operated by MidAmerican Energy.

The project will add up to 138MW of new renewable wind capacity to the US grid and is expected to help the social media site reach its target of generating 25% of its energy from renewable sources by 2015.

The project is expected to be completed in 2014.

Facebook’s data centre in Sweden – its first outside the US - is powered by hydroelectricity.