Verizon has recently been taking some great measures to turn itself into a cleaner more energy efficient company. Since 2009, Verizon has been cutting down its carbon emissions by 30% and is working towards reducing the the emission required to move each petabyte of information across its network by 50% by 2020. The efforts even got them the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award.
Tuesday, to further continue its plans, Verizon announced that it will be invest $100 million towards solar and fuel cell research and development. The plan which should be completed by next year, will add solar or fuel cell technology to 19 of its facilities in the US, across seven different states. After its completion the project will annually generated 70 million kilowatts of green energy. From data centers to customer service facilities, Verizon will end up off setting 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (1 million gallons of gas).
Verizon is teaming of with two companies to do a combined effort of fuel cells and solar energy. ClearEdge Power, a manufacturer of power systems, will be install PureCell Model 400 systems in California, New Jersey, and New York. Not only will it be a cleaner source of energy but also gives a usable power supply even when grids are down. “This is a natural evolution of our sustainability efforts and of our use of alternative energy to power a variety of our facilities,” said James Gowen, Verizon’s chief sustainability officer,
The solar power side is coming from a multiyear agreement with SunPower Corp that will bring 8 million kilowatts of energy to California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona and North Carolina. They are negotiation plans to deploy rooftop, ground, and even parking canopies to multiple facilities. Verizon already has 26 different solar-assisted sites.
All of this is great news for the planet we inhabit, but its also great news for Verizon. While everyone should be thankful for Verizon's efforts, this is still a business plan. Not only will Verizon be saving money with the easy natural energy, but also as previously stated, let them operate their network regardless of if it's during power outages.
For more information you can check out the official post here, and if you have some creative ideas of your own you should check out Verizon's Powerful Answers contest. You can will up to a million dollars for your solutions to problems we face in Health Care, Education, or Sustainability.
