Meta has signed a new renewable energy deal in Arizona.
The social network company this week announced its Mesa data center will soon be supported by new solar energy from Salt River Project (SRP) through a contract with Ørsted.
Under the contract, Meta will receive the majority of the output of Ørsted's Eleven Mile Solar Center, a 300MW solar farm and 300MW four-hour battery energy storage system currently under construction in Pinal County, Arizona.
Once online in 2024, Meta said this will be the largest solar-plus-battery project on SRP's power grid. Any energy not needed by the Meta data center will be available to SRP's customer base.
"We are proud to partner with SRP to bring new solar energy to the grid. Access to renewable energy and a strong, reliable grid was an important part of our decision to build in Mesa," said Urvi Parekh, Meta's head of renewable energy.
"Meta is committed to having a positive impact on local communities and we're excited to help bring this additional investment and jobs to the area."
Meta said it will also receive an allocation of 50MW from the 100MW West Line Solar Facility, which opened earlier this year in Eloy. The company will also soon receive a portion of the output from the 200MW Brittlebush Solar Facility in Coolidge, which is expected to be online in 2024.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. SRP aims to add 7,000MW of new renewable resources, including 6,000MW of solar, by 2035.
"SRP is pleased to partner with Meta to add more solar to help meet Meta's renewable energy goals and SRP's sustainability commitments," said Bobby Olsen, chief planning, strategy and sustainability executive at SRP.
"As SRP focuses on responsibly decarbonizing our generation mix, we will need to more than double our power resource capacity by 2035. Strategic partnerships with customers like Meta and renewable energy developers like Ørsted help us get there."
Meta first announced and broke ground on the Mesa campus in August 2021, with phase one of the 396-acre site comprising two buildings spanning 970,000 sq ft (90,000 sqm). The company announced further expansion plans in May 2022 taking the site to more than 2.5 million square feet.
James Giamarino, chief commercial officer, Americas at Ørsted, added: "The Eleven Mile Solar Center is Ørsted's first project in Arizona. We are pleased to partner with SRP to deliver clean, affordable power to their customers, including companies like Meta that are prioritizing sustainability.”
Ørsted previously signed PPAs with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon in the US and Europe.
