Virginia Facebook data center to be powered by renewable energy

Published on October 11, 2017 by Chris Galford


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A new Facebook data center coming to a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, will be powered by solar energy collected by Dominion Energy Virginia, under the agreement of a renewable rate option.

The facility will be located in Henrico County and consist of two buildings sprawling across nearly one million square feet. As for its energy plans, it would be covered under an option known as Schedule RF which, if approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission, would allow the company to offset its annual energy needs through renewable energy. Multiple solar facilities are planned to supply those needs, but the sites for those have yet to be determined.

“We know from experience that when people come together, they can do a lot of good in the world,” Bobby Hollis, director of Global Energy at Facebook, said. “We came together with Dominion Energy Virginia to create a new tariff that ensures renewable energy solutions are accessible not just to Facebook, but other companies as well. This new opportunity for customers to access renewable energy enables us to get one step closer to our goal of powering 100 percent of our operations with clean and renewable energy.”

Facebook worked with Dominion to develop the Schedule RF structure not just for themselves, but for other potential businesses as well. It opens a new rate option that could open up millions in investments for Virginia clean energy projects. To qualify, customers would have to bring new electrical load and agree to purchase environmental attributes from state-defined renewable energy sources.

“Access to clean energy is joining reliability and price as important considerations when businesses decide to locate their operations,” Robert M. Blue, president and CEO of Dominion Energy’s Power Delivery Group, said. “We are pleased we have been able to develop a solution for Facebook that meets all those requirements and creates a model that can be used by other large businesses as well. It opens the door to attracting more businesses and more jobs for the communities we serve.”