The site of a Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant will soon be home to Google’s next data center. The TVA board voted to shutdown the Widows Creek facility earlier this year.
The coal plant in northern Alabama is shutting down in a few months as part of an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Tennessee’s air. When the smokestacks stop puffing, Google will begin work on a $600 million complex that will be a hub for Internet traffic, powered solely by renewable sources. This will be just Google’s 14
th data center across the globe.
These kinds of server farms have been a focus of TVA. The utility has designated 23 sites in its service area as primed for similar projects.
TVA also has other coal plants coming offline in the near future and has pledged to repurpose those sites in a way that will be economically beneficial for the surrounding areas.
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