GigamOM – The era of the 100 MW data center

The first phase of Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Ore. will have a capacity for 28 MW of power, points out Data Center Knowledge. That’s about the same amount of power used by all the homes and businesses in the rest of the Oregon county where the data center is located. And that’s just the first of three potential parts of Facebook’s data center in Oregon. When all three stages are built out, the entire facility could have a whopping power capacity of 78 MW.

Data centers are increasingly requiring energy capacity of close to 100 MW of power, which is the equivalent power for about 80,000 U.S. homes, says Greenpeace. While most Internet companies don’t disclose the details of their facilities’ energy consumption, Apple’s billion-dollar data center in North Carolina is estimated to require 100 MW, according to Greenpeace. Google’s data center in North Carolina is estimated to require between 60 MW to 100 MW when the second phase of it is fully built out, and Facebook has another data center in North Carolina, which is estimated to be smaller with a capacity of 40 MW.

More of the GigaOM article from Katie Fehrenbacher

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.