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Solar-powered web search

It is widely known that the Internet consumes vast amounts of electricity. If it were a country of its own, it would be the third largest consumer of electricity in the world. How this electricity is generated is critical to the impact that online activities have. That is why the search engine Ecosia was founded in 2009: To plant a tree for every internet search. In the spring of 2019, they surpassed the mark of 50 million trees worldwide.

Twice as much power as necessary

Recently, the company has also decided to operate their servers with their own solar system. This has been planned so that by the end of the year it will be producing twice as much electricity as the servers require. This is also intended to set a signal for more clean energy.

The existing systems are located at two locations: Aue in Saxony and Schinne in Saxony-Anhalt. Together they have an output of 730 kilowatts (531 kW and 199 kW respectively). The solar modules come from Hanwha Q Cells and JA Solar and the inverters from Delta and Huawei. The German manufacturer Profiness was chosen for the mounting system. The Frankfurt-based company Enviria, which has a branch in Aue, Germany, was entrusted with the installation of the systems and can therefore be regarded as a local partner. The cost for the two systems installed so far totalled 895,000 euros. (mfo)

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