Facebook has announced that it will share with its rival companies the secrets behind its new energy-efficient data centre.

The most popular social network’s facility located in Prineville, Oregon is believed to use 38% less power than alternate centres. This location cost $188m (£117m) to build.

The hope is, that by making the innovations public they will aid cutting the amount of electricity consumed by the industry.

Facebook will release specifications and mechanical drawings of their building under the title of Open Compute Project.

Data centres use a vast amount of electricity to run their equipment and even to keep it cool. One of Facebook’s plants innovations is the extensive use of outside air to cool the servers, as opposed to air conditioning. The machines themselves have also been designed specially to maximise the new cooling system.