The US social media giant Facebook has agreed a renewable energy power supply deal with Vattenfall to cover its Swedish and Norwegian data centres. The contract will span 15 years and oblige the green energy utility firm to supply 1,000 GW of clean power each year, sourced from its wind farms at Bjerkreim.

Each of the three wind farms will be using Gamesa model wind turbines produced by Siemens, each with 704 MW of capacity. The wind turbines will be built by Norks Vind Energy by the end of 2019.

The renewable energy projects will provide additional wind power to Norway and Sweden's grids whilst offering a wholly renewable power solution to Facebook's data centres in line with its broader green energy and sustainability strategy.

At the same time, one of its data centres will be using a heat recovery system to produce community renewable heating. The new contract will be the biggest renewable energy contract that Vattenfall has with a commercial partner in the Nordic region.

Last year, Facebook invested in a 100pc renewable energy solution at its Nebraska data centre - again using wind energy. In the same way, the wind farm at Rattlesnake Creek in Papillon was built to meet the needs of the company at a cost of $430 million. It has a total energy generation capacity of 320 MW, and Facebook is purchasing 200 MW of energy for its data centre.

Facebook's ultimate aim is to ensure that its entire global operation can be powered by green energy solutions such as wind and solar power. In this way, it is akin to other tech firms such as Google and Apple, who have made tremendous strides in removing the C02 emissions from their operations.