Microsoft data center from Cheyenne switches to wind power

Many telecommunications companies are now trying to use alternative energy sources as widely as possible. This was written on Habré more than once, and the process of transition to "green" energy continues. This time, Microsoft decided to transfer its data center from Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA, to the energy of wind farms.

Contracts have already been concluded with Bloom Wind, which is committed to supply 178 MW of energy. In addition, similar contracts are concluded with two wind stations Silver Sage and Happy Jack from Wyoming. They are committed to providing another 59 MW of power to Microsoft.

Of course, for the company itself this is not the first transaction in the field of alternative energy. Now Microsoft is working, for example, with a wind station in Illinois and a similar station from Texas. They supply companies with 75 MW and 100 MW of energy, respectively. In total, Microsoft receives about 0.5 GW of wind energy per year.

The Cheyenne data center has spare generators that will become additional energy sources for the local network. In addition, the company intends to supply excess energy to the local grid. All this will be possible thanks to the work of additional capacities.

Already in 2018, Microsoft is going to receive about 50% of all energy from renewable sources. In the next decade, this figure is planned to increase to 60%. Now the situation is also not bad - 44% of the energy used by various Microsoft facilities is taken from renewable sources. And recently, the company tried to abandon the usual cooling systems by placing the server under water in a special box.



In addition to Microsoft, other companies use wind energy. For example, at the end of 2015, Amazon executives announced that a quarter of the company's total energy consumption is green energy. By the end of this year, the percentage of energy use of alternative sources will grow up to 40%.

Amazon has decided to build wind farms for its three new data centers. They have almost been built, and their total capacity is 820,000 MW * h. This is enough to provide energy to the company's data centers in Ohio. The company's wind farms currently operate in North Carolina and Virginia, USA.

Apple has decided to use solar energy and biogas. So, the corporation in its new DC built two “solar farms”. In addition, biogas, which is produced locally, is also used here. The source of organic matter is the fields located near the DC. The methane produced is not used as fuel for, for example, thermal power plants. They are powered by Bloom Energy fuel cells. In the process of obtaining energy in such elements, the hydrogen of a methane molecule reacts with atmospheric oxygen. Electricity is produced, water and small amounts of carbon dioxide are released as by-products.



Apple's solar power plants (two of them) produce 42 million kWh of energy each. The company receives 84 million kWh of solar energy and about 40 million kWh of energy generated by fuel cells per year. This would be enough to supply energy to approximately 11 thousand households during the year.

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