Renewable energy is not only needed for homes and industrial areas. At the same time, huge technology companies that consume high energy need to keep up with this transformation. In this context, Meta, the umbrella company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced that its data centers will soon be powered by solar energy, thanks to a contract with the Danish energy company Orsted.Significant renewable energy investment from Meta
Under the contract, Meta will own a majority of the output of Orsted’s 300MW solar farm and 300MW battery energy storage system currently under construction in the US state of Arizona. This facility, developed with the US Salt River Project (SRP) and Danish energy company Orsted, is planned to be completed next year.
Meta will purchase 50MW from another solar energy facility earlier this year and part of the production of another 200MW solar energy facility, which is planned to be operational in 2024. “SRP is pleased to partner with Meta to add more solar energy that will help Meta meet its renewable energy goals and SRP’s sustainability commitments,” said Bobby Olsen, SRP’s director of planning, strategy and sustainability.
With this move, Meta will feed its giant Mesa campus in Arizona. Meta first laid the foundation of the Mesa campus in August 2021. The first phase of the 396-acre site consists of two buildings of 970,000 square meters (90,000 m²). The company had announced further expansion plans in May 2022, which would increase the site to over 2.5 million square feet. The technology giant reached net zero emissions across all of its operations in 2020 and met all of its energy demand with renewable energy, but continued to invest in clean energy projects as its business grew. The company expects to have invested 9.8 GW of wind and solar capacity in the US alone by 2025.
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