Going green for data storage is something companies want to do. It’s just what Amazon is doing in fact. The company announced a unique way to power its green data center: wind power. Amazon Web Services announced what it is calling the largest renewable energy generation investment for the company to this point, but it didn’t specifically state how large the investment would be. Nevertheless, it will build a wind farm in North Carolina. The farm will be large enough to provide for the local utility grid, which the company’s data centers that operate its cloud services work off of.
Amazon Data Centers Go Green
Large providers of digital services including cloud and data storage view renewable energy as an excellent investment and with good reason. Renewable energy is good for the environment, but it is also one of the best ways to reduce operating costs for these mega companies. Also important is public perception. There’s been some discussion among environmentalists who claim that those companies operating a “cloud” based system are using mostly coal to power them. Therefore, taking Google’s lead, Amazon will be working towards clean energy for its data center.
More Companies Getting on Board
A variety of wind and solar farms are popping up throughout the country as a way to support large company’s needs. This move by Amazon for its data centers isn’t that unique. Many of the companies who are focusing on clean energy, such as Google and now Amazon, have been investing in long term power purchase agreements, where the company makes a commitment to buy energy for future projects over a period of 10 or more years. This helps to fund the development of these projects at the start.
One company that’s at the forefront of wind and solar farms to power cloud and data center operators is Greenpeace. The company made a statement showcasing its support for the move by the company for the Amazon data center. However, it isn’t completely clear if the wind farm power will be enough to displace the use of gas, coal or nuclear fuel in powering data centers entirely. The company wants more companies to commit to moves like this to encourage a reduction in use of coal and other fossil fuel based energy.
According to reports, The 208 MW Amazon Win Farm, as it is calling it will be located in Perquimans and Pasquotank counties. It is estimated to be able to produce 670,000 MWh each year. The company will have it come online by the end of 2016. With this investment, Amazon’s total renewable energy generation will be about 1.3 MWh annually all of which is located in the eastern and central portions of the country.
In Summary
Ultimately, the move to use green energy to at least provide some support for the company’s massive data centers is a step in the right direction. A green data center is one that can still operate in the most efficient and secure manner, but without the reliance on fossil fuels and other sources of fuel that potential damage the environment.
Katrina specializes in server products with Rack Solutions leading the IT industry for custom racking design.