Facebook’s Iowa data centre to run on wind power

Online social networking service Facebook has announced that its Altoona, Iowa data centre will be 100% powered by wind power.

The new data centre, which is set to be operational in 2015, will be Facebook’s second data center to run on all renewable power after its Lulea, Sweden location.

A nearby wind project in Wellsburg, Iowa, owned and operated by MidAmerican Energy will provide electricity for the new data centre.
According to Facebook, the wind project and the data centre are under construction at present.

By 2015, Facebook aims to settle on powering its data centres on 25% renewable energy.

A Facebook blog said: "When we settled on Altoona as the location for our fourth data center, one of the deciding factors was the opportunity to help develop a new wind project in the state."

The latest project is expected to add up to 138MW of new renewable wind capacity to the grid in the region.

Advocacy organisation Greenpeace began railing against Facebook in 2010 on energy use patterns, following which Facebook vowed to clean-up its acts.

Greenpeace IT analyst Gary Cook told wired.com: "When Facebook said back in spring that they were going to Iowa, the utility company in Iowa, MidAmerican Energy, announced that they were shelving plans to build a new nuclear facility and then filed plans to build a wind plant instead."