Today we announced the official opening of Microsoft’s newest data center in San Antonio, TX. Environmental Sustainability plays a key role in our site selection for Data Centers. The environmental sustainability approach for the San Antonio data center has been extensive, including:

• The San Antonio facility is the most power-efficient data center we’ve built to date.
• The facility will use 602,000 gallons of recycled waste water (from San Antonio’s waste water system) a day to cool the facility during peak cooling months or approximately 8 million gallons of water a month.
• Some improvements include the ways the servers are laid out in the rooms, the lighting in the building and other materials used for construction.
• Advantage of site selection:  Future plans for the facility include making use of availability of wind as part of the power mix in Texas and capturing abundant sunlight with solar panels. 
• Old-growth oak trees saved – shade provided has benefit in reduction of cooling costs. One such tree was named after the Data Center team’s General Manager, Michael Manos
• In addition to building the data center as sustainably as possible we run them as efficiently as possible as well. The efficient use of power is one of the metrics our data center managers are measured by.

This new data center builds on the learning's from our recently opened facility in Quincy, WA. Find out more at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc546560.aspx