Facebook vows to blow EVEN HARDER

It seems Facebook's experience with wind power has been good enough for the personalised ads giant to come back for more.

The company's west region director of data centre operations Ken Patchett announced that Facebook's next data centre will land in Fort Worth, Texas, and will mimic its Iowa bit-barn by using 100 per cent wind power.

The energetic electrons will come from a 200 MW facility being built by Citigroup Energy, Alterra Power and Starwood Energy Group, Patchett said.

Construction of the wind farm has been under way 90 miles (145 km) distant from Fort Worth in Clay County, on a 17,000 acre (69 square km) site. With Facebook as its anchor tenant, the plant will have plenty of leftover electricity to sell to the grid.

He added that the facility will “be cooled using outdoor air instead of energy-intensive air conditioner” in spite of Texas summer temperatures.

According to a separate statement by infrastructure veep Tom Furlong, the Mark Zucerkberg-run firm's work on energy efficiency has “helped us save more than $2bn in infrastructure costs over the last three years”.

The ad-slinger hasn't said how much it's spending on the Fort Worth facility, but it's a safe bet it'll be in the hundreds of millions. ®