Facebook has chronicled its efforts to monitor water and energy usage at its data center in Prineville, Ore., and the social network recently focused its energy on wind energy, donating $15,000 toward KidWind Challenge Oregon, a contest in which students contributed designs for wind turbines.
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Facebook plans to build a $1.5 billion data center in Altoona, Iowa, joining its existing facilities in Prineville, Ore.; Forest City, N.C.; and Luleå, Sweden, the Des Moines Register reported.
Facebook is going public with the results of its efficiency efforts at its data centers in Prineville, Ore., and Forest City, N.C., debuting two public dashboards that display real-time data for the data centers’ PUE (power usage effectiveness) and WUE (water usage effectiveness) levels.
Facebook uses so many resources just to save the 240 billion-plus photos that are on the social network. Now the company is utilizing cold storage at its Prineville, Ore., data center to make sure older photos can be as easily accessed as the ones users uploaded five minutes ago.
This past April, Facebook began operations at its second data center in the U.S., in Forest City, N.C., which joined its already existing facility in Prineville, Ore. But how does the social network deal with the differences in climate between the two locations?
We know that Facebook plans to expand its data center in Prineville, Ore. Recent filings show that the new building will be pretty cool — literally. Facebook has given the new center the nickname of Sub-Zero. Wired wrote more about Facebook’s plans for the additional data center.
Facebook filed an application with the city of Prineville, Ore., to construct a new data center near the 334,000-square-foot facility it opened in April 2011 and the twin building it is erecting next door.
About one week after releasing energy usage figures, Facebook showed how efficiently water is used at its data center in Prineville, Ore. The verdict? Good, not great.
Facebook’s trademark color may be blue, but it’s also known for being green. New figures released Wednesday by the social network show that 23 percent of the company’s energy is renewable. Facebook is also continuing to seek ways to cut back its carbon emissions and increase the percentage of energy coming from clean, renewable sources.
Facebook is moving forward with an expansion of its Oregon data center earlier than expected, thanks to a little help from lawmakers and a much needed power upgrade.
