OREANDA-NEWS. Equinix will purchase power from two wind farms planned for Texas and Oklahoma in a monumental step toward our goal of powering our entire global data center platform with clean, renewable energy.

The deals will provide a combined 225 megawatts (MW) of capacity by the end of 2016, when the wind projects become fully operational. They will nearly double the percentage of Equinix’s global footprint covered by clean and renewable sources of energy, from 43% to 82%.

The deals also mean our North American data centers will be 100% covered by clean and renewable energy by the end 2016.

Equinix announced our commitment to 100% clean and renewable power use in all our data centers in April. At that time, about a third of our global energy consumption was covered by clean and renewable sources. But we’ve moved quickly to secure energy from various sources – fuel cells, solar farms and, now, wind projects – and we’re close to reaching our goal.

From the start, we’ve acknowledged that the data center industry is energy-intensive. But we also believe that as the industry leader, with 105 data centers in 33 markets globally, the choices we make can have major impact.

“We truly understand the importance of operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Karl Strohmeyer, president, Equinix Americas.

The deals announced today are power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Invenergy LLC and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC.

  • The deal with Invenergy includes the purchase of 100 MW of capacity from the Wake Wind Energy Facility in Floyd and Crosby Counties in Texas.
  • The agreement with NextEra includes the purchase of 125 MW of capacity from the Rush Springs Renewable Generation Facility in Grady and Stephens Counties in Oklahoma.

The PPAs are the second and third Equinix has signed in the last 60 days. In September, we announced a deal with SunEdison Inc. to buy 105 MW of solar power from a California solar farm it’s building just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. That agreement provides renewable energy coverage for all 11 of our California data centers, plus our Silicon Valley headquarters. And in June, we agreed to install Bloom Energy fuel cells at our SV5 data center in Silicon Valley.

The two, new wind energy deals continue the momentum we’re committed to sustaining.

“These projects announced today are two significant milestones toward our commitment of reaching 100% renewable power across all of our data centers across the globe, and further solidify Equinix’s position as a leader in data center sustainability,” Strohmeyer said.