According to Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, corporate renewable energy procurement set a new single-year record for new capacity of announced wind and solar deals in 2018.
The Center reports that as of mid-December 2018, publicly announced corporate procurements of renewable energy reached 6.43 gigawatts. Procurement approaches counted toward this total include power purchase agreements, green power purchases, green tariffs, and outright project ownership in the United States.
Facebook, AT&T, Walmart, ExxonMobil and Microsoft had the five highest total volumes of newly announced deals; Facebook alone added 1,849.5 megawatts of new renewable procurement.
The Center notes that the U.S. renewables market has nearly doubled its annual total of corporate clean energy off-site deal volume since its prior highpoint in 2015. Also noteworthy is a near-doubling of the number of new entrants into the procurement market, including AT&T which completed deals for 820 megawatts of renewable power in 2018.
According to the Center's Deal Tracker, the total cumulative corporate procurement of renewable energy in the U.S. since 2013 now exceeds 15 gigawatts.
Energy powers society; society's choices shape energy policy. A blog about our energy resources and the choices they present for society.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Debate over data center green claims
Friday, April 20, 2012
How green is Apple's iCloud data storage service? That question provoked debate this week, as environmental activism group Greenpeace released a report critical of Apple's choices of power supply for its data center in Maiden, North Carolina, where the iCloud storage is based.
Greenpeace's report, How Clean is Your Cloud (52-page PDF), notes the explosive growth of cloud-based data and computing services offered by companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google,
and Yahoo. These services are made possible by data centers, centralized networks of servers and computer infrastructure. As Greenpeace put it, "Data centers are the factories of the 21st century information age, containing thousands of computers that store and manage our rapidly growing collection of data for consumption at a moment’s notice."
Data centers can be major consumers of electricity, needing cooling and air handling as well as energy for raw processing operations. Some data center operators seek out renewable electricity, while others are developing on-site generation. Most work to improve their energy efficiency, making the best possible use of the energy they need.
Apple has touted the green credentials of its Maiden data center, which was designed to earn LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Apple's Maiden facility will also include a 20 MW solar facility on land adjacent to the data center, as well as a 5 MW biogas-based fuel cell system, systems Apple describes as "the nation’s largest end user-owned solar array" and "the largest nonutility fuel cell installation in the United States."
Greenpeace's report notes that despite these investments, Apple's data center is located in an area where utilities source a significant amount of power from coal-fired power plants. Greenpeace and Apple dispute how much power the Maiden plant will consume (differing by as much as a factor of 5), and thus what fraction of its electricity will be produced from renewable on-site generation.
Whatever the facts may be, the debate illustrates society's interest in the environmental impacts of our technological choices - as well as the difficulty in evaluating some claims of greenness.
Greenpeace's report, How Clean is Your Cloud (52-page PDF), notes the explosive growth of cloud-based data and computing services offered by companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google,
and Yahoo. These services are made possible by data centers, centralized networks of servers and computer infrastructure. As Greenpeace put it, "Data centers are the factories of the 21st century information age, containing thousands of computers that store and manage our rapidly growing collection of data for consumption at a moment’s notice."
Data centers can be major consumers of electricity, needing cooling and air handling as well as energy for raw processing operations. Some data center operators seek out renewable electricity, while others are developing on-site generation. Most work to improve their energy efficiency, making the best possible use of the energy they need.
Apple has touted the green credentials of its Maiden data center, which was designed to earn LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Apple's Maiden facility will also include a 20 MW solar facility on land adjacent to the data center, as well as a 5 MW biogas-based fuel cell system, systems Apple describes as "the nation’s largest end user-owned solar array" and "the largest nonutility fuel cell installation in the United States."
Greenpeace's report notes that despite these investments, Apple's data center is located in an area where utilities source a significant amount of power from coal-fired power plants. Greenpeace and Apple dispute how much power the Maiden plant will consume (differing by as much as a factor of 5), and thus what fraction of its electricity will be produced from renewable on-site generation.
Whatever the facts may be, the debate illustrates society's interest in the environmental impacts of our technological choices - as well as the difficulty in evaluating some claims of greenness.
Facebook data center power demand
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Facebook has revealed that its data center in Prineville, Oregon consumes 28 megawatts of electricity -- consistent with other comparably-sized data facilities, but a significant draw on the local electric grid. As data center operations grow, they will need reliable access to affordable electricity.
Data centers, which are centralized locations where computer servers store and process information, are in increasing demand. From managing the smart grid through real-time data collection and processing to managing information about online contacts, data centers support many of the activities consumers take for granted every day.
Fundamentally composed of electronic data storage and processing equipment, data centers can consume significant amounts of electricity. Managing the cost and environmental impacts of that power consumption is important to many data center operators. Some, like Google, have chosen to source renewable power for their data centers. Others pursue improved energy efficiency for their data centers.
In Facebook's case, the initial 300,000 square foot facility reportedly consumes up to 28 megawatts of power. By comparison, all of the other businesses and homes in Crook County reportedly consume just 30 megawatts of power, meaning Facebook's data center could already consume about half of the electricity in the region. Future phases might roughly triple that electricity consumption, and other businesses and governmental entities are considering siting data centers near Prineville's location in central Oregon.
Data centers, which are centralized locations where computer servers store and process information, are in increasing demand. From managing the smart grid through real-time data collection and processing to managing information about online contacts, data centers support many of the activities consumers take for granted every day.
Fundamentally composed of electronic data storage and processing equipment, data centers can consume significant amounts of electricity. Managing the cost and environmental impacts of that power consumption is important to many data center operators. Some, like Google, have chosen to source renewable power for their data centers. Others pursue improved energy efficiency for their data centers.
In Facebook's case, the initial 300,000 square foot facility reportedly consumes up to 28 megawatts of power. By comparison, all of the other businesses and homes in Crook County reportedly consume just 30 megawatts of power, meaning Facebook's data center could already consume about half of the electricity in the region. Future phases might roughly triple that electricity consumption, and other businesses and governmental entities are considering siting data centers near Prineville's location in central Oregon.
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