Facebook broke ground on Tuesday for a new wind-powered data center in Fort Worth, Texas. With this massive data center, the firm will be able to offer more computing capacity to its 1.4 billion users so they can share a piece of their lives with friends and family.
Using wing energy
Based on the announcement, the wind farm covers around 500,000 square feet, and is located on an 111-acre site, leaving sufficient space for further expansion. The social networker plans to invest at least $500 million in the first phase. Initially, Facebook expects to employ 40 people at the data center, which will rely solely on wind power to keep its servers running.
In Facebook’s data center, the computers will be storing billions of photos, videos, messages and other updates that users poston the platform daily. Facebook reported that the new data center will be 100% powered by renewable energy, coming from 200 megawatts of wind energy project, and it will be in operation from 2016.
Facebook’s director of data center operations for the West region, Ken Patchett, said that 200MW of power is more than “we will need for the foreseeable future, and we’re proud to have played a role in bringing this project to Texas.”
Facebook knows how to make it work
Beginning with its Prineville, Oregon data center, the social networker initiated a new energy savings plan, which it has been using since in other projects. It also made its hardware plan publicly available, allowing other firms to benefit from its experience.
Keeping the new data center cool will not be a problem for Facebook as it already has a data center in the hot, humid southern heat of North Carolina. Moreover, the techniques that it uses there to keep it cool will also be used for Texas. All eyes will be on Facebook to see how it manages to keep cool along with keeping costs down. Facebook’s data centers have been improved due to its Open Computer Project.
Facebook needs more data centers to meet the increasing demand for digital services as more users come online via mobile devices. Recently, Google picked Alabama for its fourteenth global data center, and its seventh in the U.S. The search giant’s data center will also be powered entirely by renewable energy such as wind and solar power.
The new Texas data center will be Facebook’s fifth, with locations in Oregon, Iowa, North Carolina, and Sweden. The location in Sweden is Facebook’s only overseas data center.
