Last week, internet commerce giant eBay raised the bar as a green energy company when it announced plans to implement a 6-megawatt clean renewable energy fuel cell system as the primary power source for a new flagship data center. The power will be provided through a joint partnership with Bloom Energy.
When complete the eBay facility will be the country’s largest non-utility fuel cell installation. Unlike other facilities where the renewable energy is a supplement to the power supplied from the power company, the eBay design with Bloom Energy features the renewable energy at the core of its global commerce platform.
When complete the data center will incorporate 30 Bloom Energy servers which will produce a combined six-megawatts, reducing the feed from the electric utility grid to a backup.
“We believe the future of commerce can be greener,” said John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay Inc. “Technology-led innovation is changing retail and revolutionizing how people shop and pay. We also want to revolutionize how shopping is powered. We are embracing disruptive energy technology and designing it into our core data center energy architecture. Running our data centers primarily on reliable, renewable energy, we intend to shape a future for commerce that is more environmentally sustainable at its core.”
The new implementation in the data center facility in Utah is expected to be fully functional by mid-2013. According to the company, each of the 30 Bloom Energy servers will generate 1.75 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually. Additionally, having the power cell servers installed only a few hundred feet from the center itself, substantially eliminates traditional utility grid losses over distance, creating a much more efficient use of power.
Already a leader in utilization of green energy, eBay currently operates a 650 kilowatt (kW) solar array and a 500 kW Bloom fuel cell installation at its San Jose headquarters, as well as a 100 kW solar array at its Denver data center. In April of this year, the company installed a 665 kW solar array spanning 72,000 square feet atop its existing, LEED® certified Utah data center. The new Bloom Energy project will be eBay’s fifth and largest renewable energy installation.