Microsoft data center from Cheyenne switches to wind energy

Many telecommunication 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 wind power.

Contracts have already been signed with Bloom Wind, which has pledged to supply 178 MW of power. In addition, similar contracts were concluded with two wind turbines Silver Sage and Happy Jack from Wyoming. They pledge to provide another 59 MW of power for Microsoft.

Of course, for the company itself this is not the first deal 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 the company with 75 MW and 100 MW of power, respectively. In total, Microsoft gets about 0.5 GW of wind energy per year.
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In the data center of Cheyenne there are spare generators that will become additional sources of energy for the local network. In addition, the company is going to give surplus energy to the local network. All this will be possible thanks to the work of additional capacity.

Already in 2018, Microsoft is going to get 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 that various Microsoft facilities use is taken from renewable sources. And recently, the company tried to abandon the usual cooling systems, 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 stated that a quarter of the total energy consumed by a company is “green” energy. By the end of this year, the percentage of energy use from alternative sources will increase by up to 40%.

For three of their new data centers in Amazon, they decided to build a wind power station. They have almost been built, and their total capacity is 820,000 MW * h. That's enough to power the company's data centers in Ohio. Now the company's wind power stations operate in North Carolina and Virginia, USA.

Apple has decided to use the energy of the sun and biogas. So, the corporation in its new DC has built two "solar farms". In addition, it uses biogas, which is produced on site. A source of organic materials are fields located near the DC. The methane produced is not used as a fuel for, for example, thermal power plants. They are charged with fuel cells from Bloom Energy. In the process of obtaining energy in such elements, the hydrogen molecule of methane reacts with oxygen in the air. Electricity is produced, water and small amounts of carbon dioxide are released as by-products.



Apple's solar power plants (there are 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 using fuel cells per year. That would be enough to supply about 11 thousand households with energy during the year.

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