Social media and data giant Meta has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with US utility Salt River Project (SRP) and Danish energy company Ørsted to acquire electricity from the latter’s Eleven Mile Solar Center in the US state of Arizona.
The project is currently under construction, and once completed, Ørsted expects the facility to have a power capacity of 300MW, and a 4-hour battery energy storage system (BESS) with an output of 300MW (1,200MWh).
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The company plans to commission the project next year, and Meta announced that it would acquire “the majority” of the electricity generated for use at a data centre in the city of Mesa, with the remainder being made available to SRP customers in the region.
This is not Meta’s only PPA in Arizona, having already signed separate agreements with SRP and EDP Renewables. The company receives half of the output of SRP’s 100MW West Line solar plant, which began commercial operations in February of this year, and will receive what it described as “a portion” of the electricity from EDP Renewables’ 200MW Brittlebrush solar plant, which is currently under construction, and that EDP Renewables expects to commission next year.
“We are proud to partner with SRP to bring new solar energy to the grid,” said Urvi Parekh, head of renewable energy at Meta. “Access to renewable energy and a strong, reliable grid were an important part of our decision to build in Mesa.”
Meta has been a prolific backer of new renewables projects in the US, having signed PPAs to acquire power from Avangrid’s True North project in Texas, and rPlus Energies’ Pleasant Valley facility in Idaho, earlier this year.
The technology giant reached net zero emissions across its operations in 2020, and meets the entirety of its energy demand with renewable power, but has continued investing in clean energy projects as its business grows. The company expects to have invested in 9.8GW of wind and solar capacity in the US alone by 2025.
