eBay: Renewable Energy “Blooms” in Utah
Dean Nelson, who oversees data centers for eBay, told me recently that he has two big business problems to solve: I need control of power cost. How do I get a power hedge? As a growing business, we are consuming more power. Along with that, in parallel, I own 62% of the carbon footprint of the company. We love being in Utah, but Utah was our biggest problem because the electricity comes mostly from coal. Nelson and his boss, eBay’s CEO, John Donahoe, have just taken one big step towards solving both problems. The company announced today [June 21] that it will expand a data center in South Jordan, Utah, by acquiring fuel cells from Bloom Energy, a private company that already supplies fuel cells to eBay headquarters in San Jose [above]. The data-center installation will deliver six megawatts of energy. That’s a lot. eBay says the project ...
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