Las Vegas company’s renewable energy efforts touted by Greenpeace
CARSON CITY — Las Vegas-based data storage company Switch gets top marks in a new report released by Greenpeace ranking internet companies on their renewable energy efforts.
“Clicking Clean: Who Is Winning the Race to Build a Green Internet?” finds that Apple, Google, Facebook, and newcomer Switch are “leading the charge to build a renewably powered internet.”
Switch scored the highest for its efforts to transition its data center fleet to renewables. Switch is the first multi-tenant data center provider in the world to receive a perfect score in the six-year history of the Clicking Clean report.
“The reason Switch was able to achieve this historic recognition is because of the guiding vision of founder and CEO Rob Roy to move Switch to 100 percent renewable energy and complete sustainability,” said Adam Kramer, Switch executive vice president for strategy.
Renewable energy use by data center providers is increasingly critical as the amount of power used by data centers continues to grow dramatically. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that in 2015, data centers consumed more than 2 percent of all energy in the United States.
“Thanks to the leadership and advocacy of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Switch, we are seeing the tech industry make major strides toward powering the internet with clean energy,” said Greenpeace Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook. “A growing number of companies now recognize the need to transition to renewables, but we must see greater urgency and transparency across the board.”
Switch, which has data centers in Las Vegas and is building a massive facility at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Reno near the Tesla gigafactory, recently won approval from the Nevada Public Utilities Commission to leave NV Energy as a wholesale customer to obtain its own electricity supplies on the open market.
Switch’s Northern Nevada data center is expected to cost $3 billion when fully built and will house seven buildings totaling 6.49 million square feet. The project broke ground in September 2015.
Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Follow @seanw801 on Twitter.
