Salesforce.com has signed an agreement with NTT Europe to establish a European data center in the UK scheduled for completion in 2014.

The new data center will be Salesforce.com’s sixth worldwide and will support the company’s cloud computing services across its growing customer base in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The announcement has been expected, with CEO Marc Benioff saying at its annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco in September last year that Salesforce.com planned to expand with a data center in London, with a site and provider already chosen.

Back then, however, he said the data center had been specked out, and that he expected it to be operational this year, not 2014, as is now stated.

It is not the first time Salesforce.com has workd with NTT – in late 2011 it said it was using NTT’s data center in Tokyo to reach the Asia Pacific market.

NTT Europe wholesale data center business managing director Robin Balen said NTT will create an environmentally friendly and resilient space for Saleforce.com’s enterprise cloud computing services, but it is unsure if this will provide a mix of renewable energy options.

In March, Saleforce.com made a commitment to consider access to renewable energy when considering new data center sites after pressure was applied by Greenpeace, which two years ago placed Salesforce.com at the top of its Dirty Cloud list.

Salesforce.com said its green commitment will see it steadily increase the amount of renewable energy it uses in the data center with the goal of one day being fully powered by renewable energy.

“While we are widely recognized for the environmental efficiencies our multi-tenant technology model delivers, we know we can do more. We see the development of renewable sources of energy as an important part of our sustainability strategy, and we believe the cloud should be powered by clean sources of energy,” Salesforce.com said.

Renewable energy or no renewable energy, Salesforce.com clearly sees the need to extend its customer relationship management (CRM) platform throughout Europe.

Benioff said Europe was the company’s fastest growing region in its fiscal year 2013, with constant currency revenue growth of 38%.

“We are doubling down on Europe with the announcement of our new data center in the UK, which will support continued customer success in EMEA,” Benioff said.