The Facebook has recently signed a deal to buy renewable energy in India from a local firm called CleanMax. This is the first renewable project of Facebook in India.
About the project
- The project is located in Karnataka.
- The project capacity of 32 MW.
- Under the project Facebook and CleanMax will work together to provide renewable energy into the electrical grid of India.
- Facebook is to use the renewable energy purchased from CleanMax to power its data centre. The Facebook is to start the operations of the data centre in 2022.
- Facebook had made similar agreements with energy providers in Singapore such as Terrenus Energy, Sunseap Group, Sembcorp industries. These projects are capable of producing 160 MW of solar power.
Data Centres in India
- The revenue of Indian data centres is expected to grow at 20% year on year.
- COVID-19 has increased data consumption in India by 38% as compared to the previous year.
- The India data centre industry accounts to only 1% to 2% of the global share. It is expected to grow to 8.4% in 2023.
- The Data Centres are mainly established for collection of data, processing of data, distribution of data and processing of data.
- The data centres are set to account for 14% of carbon emissions by 2040. This is one of the main reasons why Facebook is turning towards green energy options to power its data centres.
Draft Data Centre Policy
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released the Draft Data Centre Policy. It aims to simplify the clearances to establish data centres in India.