14 DAY TRIAL // On April 30, Verizon announced that it was to spend $100 million (€76.27 million) on a green-oriented project aimed at improving on the ecological footprint of 19 of its facilities in the United States.
Not to beat about the bush, the company plans to invest said sum of money in both solar and fuel cell technologies.
ClearEdge Power are to take care of fitting the company's facilities with PureCell Model 400 fuel cell systems, whereas SunPower Corp. are to install high-efficiency PV systems.
Once in place, these means of harvesting environmentally-friendly energy sources are expected to produce about 70 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.
This much electricity would be enough to power 6,000 single-family homes throughout the course of an entire year.
Information shared with the public says that, according to several estimations, Verizon's relying on these fuel cell and solar systems will translate into their eliminating up to 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from their ecological footprint.
The company's official website says that these technologies are to be installed at corporate offices, call centers, data centers and central offices.
For those unaware, Verizon hopes that by the year 2020, it will have succeeded in cutting down on its carbon intensity (i.e. the carbon emissions that get released every time a terabyte of data makes its way through its networks) by as much as 50%.
“This is a natural evolution of our sustainability efforts and of our use of alternative energy to power a variety of our facilities,” argued James Gowen, Verizon’s current chief sustainability officer.
“These projects will reduce our carbon footprint, relieve demand on the electrical grid and enhance the resiliency of our proven service continuity - even during outages.” James Gowen further elaborated on the matter at hand.
Both the fuel cell and the solar systems are expected to be up and running by 2014 at the latest.