The coal-producing industry has taken its lumps of late, a victim of natural gas fracking and restrictions on air pollution. This October, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will finally close its outdated Widows Creek coal plant in Stevenson, Ala., which had been providing energy to the region since the 1960s, rather than knock heads with the EPA over tighter financial and environmental regulations.
That plant, located on 350 acres about 60 miles northeast of Huntsville, will be retrofitted into a data center that runs on renewable energy. Google has agreed to build this $600 million project, which would be its 14th data center globally, but the first it has committed to in eight years, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Google’s data centers in Iowa and Oklahoma run on wind power, and the Alabama facility will operate solely on renewable energy, possibly a combination of wind and solar.
The company states on its website that it has recently expanded its data centers in the states of Georgia and Iowa, as well as in Singapore and Belgium. Construction on the Alabama plant is scheduled to begin early next year and to bring between 75 and 100 jobs to Jackson County.
Google’s data centers in Iowa and Oklahoma run on wind power, and the Alabama facility will operate solely on renewable energy, possibly a combination of wind and solar, the company states. The data center will be hooked up to TVA’s electrical transmission lines, and Google will work with the Authority to run renewable energy through the latter’s electrical grid.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley called this project “the start of a long-lasting, productive relationship with Google.” He credited the TVA’s chairman Joe Ritch for securing the project. Google will benefit from two state tax-abatement packages that stem from the passage, three years ago, of the Alabama Data Processing Center Incentive Enhancement Act, according to AL.com.
Gary Demasi, Google’s director of Global Infrastructure, said in a prepared statement that Google sees “a lot of potential in redeveloping large industrial sites like former coal plants, and we’re excited to bring a data center to Alabama.” Urs Hölzle, Google’s SVP for technical infrastructure, told the New York Times that the company would be evaluating “plausible projects” over the next 12 months.
The data center is expected to incorporate Google’s latest technology efficiencies, which allow it to get 3.5 times the computing power out of the same amount of energy, compared to five years ago.
Related Stories
| Jul 17, 2013
CBRE recognizes nation's best green research projects
A rating system for comparative tenant energy use and a detailed evaluation of Energy Star energy management strategies are among the green research projects to be honored by commercial real estate giant CBRE Group.
| Jul 2, 2013
LEED v4 gets green light, will launch this fall
The U.S. Green Building Council membership has voted to adopt LEED v4, the next update to the world’s premier green building rating system.
| Jul 1, 2013
Report: Global construction market to reach $15 trillion by 2025
A new report released today forecasts the volume of construction output will grow by more than 70% to $15 trillion worldwide by 2025.
| Jun 28, 2013
Building owners cite BIM/VDC as 'most exciting trend' in facilities management, says Mortenson report
A recent survey of more than 60 building owners and facility management professionals by Mortenson Construction shows that BIM/VDC is top of mind among owner professionals.
| Jun 17, 2013
DOE launches database on energy performance of 60,000 buildings
The Energy Department today launched a new Buildings Performance Database, the largest free, publicly available database of residential and commercial building energy performance information.
| Jun 12, 2013
5 building projects that put the 'team' in teamwork
The winners of the 2013 Building Team Awards show that great buildings cannot be built without the successful collaboration of the Building Team.
| Jun 5, 2013
USGBC: Free LEED certification for projects in new markets
In an effort to accelerate sustainable development around the world, the U.S. Green Building Council is offering free LEED certification to the first projects to certify in the 112 countries where LEED has yet to take root.
| Jun 3, 2013
Construction spending inches upward in April
The U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that construction spending during April 2013 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $860.8 billion, 0.4 percent above the revised March estimate of $857.7 billion.
| May 17, 2013
University labs double as K-12 learning environments
Increasingly, college and university research buildings are doing double duty as homes for K-12 STEM programs. Here’s how to create facilities that captivate budding scientists while keeping faculty happy.
| May 1, 2013
Data center construction remains healthy, but oversupply a concern
Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are among the major tech companies investing heavily to build state-of-the-art data centers.
