Wind to power Facebook-owner Meta’s data centre in Iowa

Facebook parent company Meta signs deal to buy all of the output from a 225MW wind farm in Iowa

by Craig Richard 24 January 2022

An artist's impression of what Meta's data centre in Altoona, Iowa will look like once its expansion is completed

Facebook owner Meta has signed a deal to buy all of the output from Apex Clean Energy’s 224.4MW Great Pathfinder Wind wind farm in central Iowa.

The power purchase agreement (PPA) will help to support Meta’s operations in the region, including powering its data centre campus, which is located 65km from the wind farm.

Great Pathfinder is due to begin commercial operations in the second quarter oif this year. Apex has not yet confirmed which turbines the project in Boone and Hamilton counties in central Iowa will use, but a spokeswoman said the developer was considering using up to 74 turbines – indicating an average power rating of up to 3MW.

She addedthat the length of the PPA is confidential.

The Altoona data centre is currently undergoing an expansion, which is due to be completed in 2025.

Apex has previously signed PPAs with Meta for output from 572MW of wind power capacity and 61.6MW of solar PV capacity in the US.

Meta aims to power 100% of its global operations with renewable energy. In 2020, it was the fifth largest corporate sourcer of renewable energy in the world, behind Amazon, TotalEnergies, TSMC and Verizon, according to BloombergNEF.