Yahoo has unveiled plans for what it says will be one of the world’s most energy-efficient data centers.

 

It also says it aims to reduce the carbon intensity of the facilities “by at least 40% by 2014.”

 

The data center in Lockport, upstate New York, will be powered mostly by renewable hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls. Some 90% of the energy will be consumed by the servers, compared with an industry average of 50% or lower, Yahoo says.

 

Yahoo co-founder David Filo said on the company blog that the new center design would have an annualized average PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.1 or more.

 

The center would be 100% air-cooled, taking advantage of the area’s cold climate, and using a company design dubbed the Yahoo! Computing Coop, “because it looks like something chickens live in”.

 

Filo said Yahoo’s data centers in Washington state were powered by wind and hydroelectric sources, and used free cooling for most of the year, dropping energy consumption by 40-50%.

 

“As we build more capacity to meet demand, we’ll continue to focus on innovations and inventions that improve energy efficiency,” he said.

 

He said from now the company was “committing to reduce the carbon intensity of our data centers by at least 40% by 2014.”

 

“In other words, we’ll decrease our average electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our data centers around the world. We’ll get there through a combination of innovative data center design, improving how we utilize our servers, cloud computing, and locating our data centers in areas where cleaner energy is available.”

 

The company announced in 2007 that it would no longer purchase carbon offsets.