Apple Plans Second £700m Renewable Data Centre In Denmark

Apple has announced that it will build a second data centre in Denmark to run entirely on renewable energy.

The new facility, which will cost Apple around 6 billion Danish crowns ($921 million, £716m) will be located in the city of Aabenraa in southern Denmark and should become operational in the second quarter of 2019.

The data centre will power several of Apple’s online services for its European customers, including Siri, Maps, the App Store and the iTunes Store.

Going green

Speaking to Reuters, Apple’s Nordic manager Erik Stannow said: “We’re thrilled to be expanding our data center operations in Denmark, and investing in new sources of clean power.

“The planned facility in Aabenraa, like all of our data centres, will run on 100 percent renewable energy from day one, thanks to new clean energy sources we’re adding.”

Stannow also cited the “reliability of the Danish grid” as one of the main reasons for Apple choosing to open a second data centre in the region, with the first facility due to officially open later this year.

Apple has also launched a $1 billion (£785m) fund to finance renewable energy and other environmental projects, as well as setting itself the goal of “one day” making iPhones using 100 percent recycled materials.

But, it isn’t the only company upping its renewable efforts. Google, for example, is planning to purchase all of the electricity generated by a Netherlands solar park over the next decade to power its Dutch data centre.

In the UK, more than half of the country’s energy is now being generated from renewable sources and earlier this year Greenpeace praised the likes of Apple, Google and Facebook for their green efforts.

Netflix, Amazon and Samsung, however, were deemed to be lagging behind by the global climate change campaigner.

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