Commercial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  July 31, 2019

Arizona chosen for Microsoft 100% RE data centers

Microsoft will develop new data center campuses in El Mirage and Goodyear, Arizona to provide cloud and internet services for Arizona and across the Western U.S. The data centers will be powered with 100% renewable energy.

 “Arizona has been increasingly embracing the technology industry with a pool of growing talent, an affordable quality of life for employees, and as many 200 as sunny days a year making it an ideal location for investing in solar power,” said Brian Janous, general manager, energy & sustainability, Microsoft in a company blog post.

Microsoft has committed to increase the amount of renewable energy that powers their data centers to 50% in 2019; the company expects to hit the 60% mark this year. “As we work toward our next goal of hitting 70% by 2023 – on our way to powering our data centers with 100% renewable energy – we’re continuing to expand our global cloud infrastructure with our sustainability goals in mind,” said Janous, adding, “We intend to develop our new datacenter campuses in El Mirage and Goodyear, Arizona to be among the most sustainably designed and operated in the world.”

Microsoft is partnering with First Solar, an Arizona-based provider of solar energy; their 150-megawatt Sun Streams 2 PV solar plant will provide enough power to cover the energy load for each of our new datacenter campuses once the solar project is operational. With this agreement, Microsoft now has renewable energy partnerships totaling nearly 1.5-gigawatts.

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