Commercial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  December 20, 2019

Facebook signs on additional 125 MW for Ga. data center

Facebook will be adding an additional 125 MW of solar energy to its portfolio of facilities providing power to its Newton County, Ga., data center in pursuit of its goal to power the facility with 100% renewable energy.

Walton Electric Membership Corporation executed an agreement with Silicon Ranch on behalf of Facebook for power from the 25 MW Appling Solar Farm in Appling County and 100 MW Lumpkin Solar Farm in Stewart County. The projects are expected to come online in late 2020 and 2022, respectively. 

"We are committed to supporting all of Facebook's operations with 100 percent renewable energy, and we are thrilled to have strong partners such as Walton EMC and Silicon Ranch to help us achieve that ambitious goal for the Newton Data Center," Urvi Parekh, Head of Renewable Energy at Facebook, said in a statement. "We are proud to partner with them again for these new projects, which will bring additional investment to rural Georgia and strengthen the solar market in the region."

The newest agreement with Walton EMC, announced Dec. 19, comes just one week after the utility flipped the switch on a solar project in Early County, Ga., which will be supplying the data center with power. A month prior, Facebook also signed an agreement with a 107 MW solar facility in Jeff Davis County with the intention to feed the power to the Newton County data center.

All these agreements, completed in partnership with Walton EMC, are with solar projects constructed, owned and maintained by Silicon Ranch.

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