The announcement was made in Fort Worth, Texas, where Facebook also revealed plans to build a new data centre, 100% powered by renewables.

The energy will come from a new 200MW, 17,000 acre wind farm that Facebook is building in partnership with Citi Energy, Alterra Power Corporation, and Starwood Energy Group.

“It’s a good reminder of the size of our ambitions — we are trying to connect the world,” said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice-president of engineering. “Our data centers are important parts of the core infrastructure necessary to efficiently connect billions of people. We’ve already begun construction and are excited to get the facility online in late 2016.

The Fort Worth project will be Facebook’s second data centre to be fully powered by renewables and fifth overall. The company has a long-term commitment to be 100% powered by renewables.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the project would be one of the most advanced and energy efficient data centers in the world. 

A recent Greenpeace report praised Facebook’s transparency and green targets, but warned that “Facebook still faces significant challenges securing renewable energy for its first two data centres in North Carolina and Oregon”.

Google and Apple were also recognised in the report for their commitments to 100% renewable energy, while Amazon received an ‘E’ rating and the comment: “Amazon’s adoption of a 100% renewable energy goal, while potentially significant, lacks basic transparency and, unlike similar commitments from Apple, Facebook or Google, does not yet appear to be guiding Amazon’s investment decisions toward renewable energy and away from coal”.

Brad Allen

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