Facebook has announced that it plans to gain 25% of the energy it uses for its operations from clean, renewable energy sources by 2015. The company revealed the energy target, along with its current energy usage and profile in a blog post. In line with many web companies, Facebook is consuming very large amounts of energy in its data centres, as it expands facilities to meet user demand. Data centres account for around 1.3% of global power consumption, around 31GW in 2011, and companies are coming under pressure to commit to cleaner energy sources. Facebook also disclosed that it used 532KWh in 2011, with 23% of its energy drawn from clean and renewable sources, 27% from coal, 17% natural gas, 13% nuclear and 20% uncategorized sources.

Facebook also reiterated its commitment to clean energy, stating that it prefers to locate data centres in locations with access to clean and renewable energy sources; a commitment to engaging with environmental organizations, our industry peers and our utility providers to advocate for more clean and renewable energy sources and including a renewable energy component to every new data centre that it builds, to increase its understanding of how renewable sources can best be used.

Source: ITP