Facebook Pledges to Buy 100% Renewable Energy by 2020
Facebook committed Tuesday to contract renewable energy for all of its electricity consumption by 2020.
The social media giant consumes an ample amount of electricity to power its data centers around the world. The company previously committed to procuring 50 percent renewable power, and surpassed that goal ahead of schedule last year. Now it’s going to finish the job.
The announcement comes amid the busiest year ever for corporate renewables procurements. Companies have purchased nearly 3.86 gigawatts so far in 2018 across 46 deals, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, which tracks such transactions.
This trend is especially popular among the titans of Silicon Valley.
Google leads with more than 3 gigawatts contracted to cover all of its data centers and offices. Apple also powers all its operations with renewable electricity. Amazon hit 50 percent renewables for its data centers in January, and Microsoft is working toward 60 percent clean energy “early in the next decade.”
Facebook requires that the renewable energy it procures come from new projects on the grid where the data center is located.
That stipulation of additionality ensures the electrons from Facebook-sponsored generators could possibly end up in its data centers, but it should not be confused with actually running data centers on entirely renewable power.
