Facebook Signs Deal to Source Renewable Energy From India

Facebook enters into a deal with CleanMax, learn more…

Friday, 16th April 2021

Social media giant Facebook has signed a deal in India with CleanMax a Warburg Pincus-backed firm based out of Mumbai, to source renewable energy. This deal is Facebook’s first such venture with a nation from the South Asian region and is part of the company’s endeavours towards environmental sustainability.

According to a joint statement by the companies on Thursday, the collaboration between the US-based technology firm and the Indian company includes a 32-megawatt wind power project that is located in India’s southern state of Karnataka.

It is also part of a larger portfolio of wind and solar projects on which both the companies are working together to supply renewable power into India’s electrical grid, the statement added.

A similar system will be followed in other states as well where the tech major is operational. Nearly fifty per cent of the project capacity has been commissioned and generation of power is already underway.

While Facebook will buy power off the grid using environmental attribute certificates or carbon credits, the projects will be operated by CleanMax.

Urvi Parekh, who is Facebook’s head of renewable energy, said that the company is not in the ownership of the power plants but has got into agreements by signing long-term power purchase accords with these renewable energy companies.

The move will help sustain such projects in terms of the necessary financing.  

“This partnership with CleanMax will enable new solar and wind power to be generated in the near future, contributing to the decarbonisation of the Indian electrical grid,” Parekh said in a statement.

Similar partnerships will also be seen in other parts of the globe as Facebook has also announced one in Singapore wherein energy providers Sunseap Group, Terrenus Energy and Sembcorp Industries will collaborate with them on projects that can produce 160 MW of solar power, as per Parekh.

She went on to say that the electricity that will be generated from these plants will be tapped to power the company’s first Asian data centre which is expected to be functional by 2022.

As per a review by the International Energy Agency last year, data centres driving large technological firms like Facebook, account for the consumption of nearly 1 per cent of the globe’s total corpus of power.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said in a separate announcement that the company has achieved net-zero emissions and their global operations are now completely sustained by renewable energy.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

Hindustantimes