Facebook ‘Plans’ Denmark Data Centre

Facebook has purchased land in Denmark and may be preparing to build its third European data centre there, according to reports.

The company acquired a lot in Tietgenbyen, an industrial area in Odense, Denmark’s third-largest city, and is considering the site for a data centre that could be larger than its other two European sites, newspaper Fyens Stiftstidende reported over the weekend.

Three halls

Facebook is planning to use British firm Mace for construction work on the site, with construction expected to employ 1,000 to 1,200 people, the newspaper reported.

The proposed centre would consist of three main halls and could be larger than the 27,000 square metre facility Facebook operates in Lulea in northern Sweden (pictured).

The Swedish facility, which opened in 2013, is currently the only data centre Facebook operates outside the US and was planned to be the first of three European centres.

The second, currently under construction in County Meath, Ireland, is planned to be 621,000 square feet (57,700 square metres), or eight times the size of the national football and rugby stadium in Dublin.

Facebook said in a statement it had not made any “final decision” to build its third data centre in Denmark, acknowledging only that it was evaluating “potential locations”.

Power efficiency

In 2013 Facebook began publishing data centre efficiency figures on real-time dashboards for some of its data centres, including the Lulea facility, in response to criticism of the company’s energy usage.

Facebook said in 2014 it planned to expand its Lulea facility, which it said benefits from a cold climate that reduces cooling costs.

The County Meath facility is to be partly powered by renewable wind energy from BrookfieldRenewable’s Irish operations, Facebook has said.

Brookfield owns and operates renewable wind energy projects totaling 465 MW across Ireland and all renewable wind energy supplying Facebook’s Irish facilities are to be located within the country, Brookfield said.

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