eBay Inc. has announced plans to build the next phase of the company's flagship data center with renewable energy as its primary power source. Partnering with Bloom Energy, eBay is building the country's largest non-utility fuel cell installation. Renewable energy typically supplements the electric grid, but eBay is designing renewable energy into the core of its global commerce platform, incorporating 30 Bloom Energy servers into the new data center's energy architecture. The electric utility grid will be used only as backup.
“We believe the future of commerce can be greener,” said John Donahoe, president and CEO of eBay Inc. “Technology-led innovation is changing retail and revolutionizing how people shop and pay. We also want to revolutionize how shopping is powered. We are embracing disruptive energy technology and designing it into our core data center energy architecture. Running our data centers primarily on reliable, renewable energy, we intend to shape a future for commerce that is more environmentally sustainable at its core.”