Online retailer eBay has unveiled a data centre facility in Salt Lake City, Utah in the US that runs on fuel cell technology.
The new data centre is said to be the first in the world to use Bloom Energy fuel cells to provide on-site power instead of the traditional electric utility grid.
The fuel cell technology is expected to increase the company’s efficiency and decrease environmental impact by about 49% compared to its first-phase data centre.
eBay has also installed the world’s densest modular data centre called EPIC and has deployed the world’s largest modular data centre, the HP EcoPOD, under the partnership with HP.
The online retailer has also announced an investment with an alternative and renewable energy technology provider Ormat for the development of an off-site waste heat recovery system to offer clean energy to its data centres and facilities in Utah.
The construction is expected to complete in about 18 months, allowing it to capture and convert heat from the natural gas pipeline to generate about 5MW electricity.
