At New eBay Data Center, Bloom Boxes to be Primary Power Source

The world’s largest online marketplace has put something new on its own shopping list: the Cali.-based eBay (News - Alert) is designing renewable energy into the core of its global commerce platform, incorporating 30 Bloom Energy servers into the architecture of its flagship data center. Renewable energy will be the facility’s primary power source; the electric utility grid will be used only as backup.

Partnering with Sunnyvale, California-based Bloom Energy, the consumer-to-consumer auction and shopping site is building the country's largest non-utility fuel cell installation.

“We believe the future of commerce can be greener,” said John Donahoe, president and CEO at 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.”

The new six-megawatt (MW) Bloom installation is being designed and engineered into eBay’s expanded data center facility in Utah, and will be fully functional by mid-2013. Each of the 30 Bloom Energy servers will generate 1.75 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually, and will be installed a few hundred feet from the center itself, virtually eliminating traditional utility grid losses.

eBay will use the Bloom fuel cells – which generate on-site power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – to replace the large and expensive backup generators and UPS components that are historically used less than 1 percent of the year.

The company’s fuel cells will be powered by biogas, a fossil-fuel alternative derived from renewable organic waste.

The Bloom servers will power millions of transactions by eBay's more than 102 million active users, who generate more than $69 billion in merchandise volume annually. The data center also will power activity across eBay's other global commerce platforms, including PayPal (News - Alert) and StubHub, enabling merchants, retail partners, buyers and sellers to do greener commerce. 


Above, Bloom energy servers, courtesy of eBay

The new Bloom Energy project will be eBay’s fifth and largest renewable energy installation. eBay operates a 650-kilowatt (kW) solar array and a 500-kW Bloom fuel cell installation at its San Jose headquarters, as well as a 100 kW solar array at its Denver data center. In April of this year, the company installed a 665-kW solar array spanning 72,000 square feet atop its existing, LEED-certified Utah data center.

“By being a trail blazer and deploying a brand new, revolutionary architecture to build its new data center, eBay is raising the standard for the entire industry. It is 21st century infrastructure for the industry needs of the 21st century,” said KR Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy. “Bloom Energy is thrilled to be supporting eBay on this innovative and inspiring large scale project.”

The new data center will become the third facility in Utah, including the existing LEED certified data center in South Jordan and a new customer service center planned to LEED standards in Draper.

 eBay played a central role in the development and passage of Utah Senate Bill 12 earlier this year. SB 12 targets renewable energy projects that are at least 2 MW in capacity, allowing larger customers to collaborate with renewable energy developers and Rocky Mountain Power to build or purchase renewable energy from remote areas and transmit the electricity on transmission and distribution lines to their facilities.

Among the bill’s most fervent supporters, eBay considered SB 12 to be a critical policy to achieve its clean energy goals for the South Jordan Data Center and other Utah facilities.