(Related: Google’s Solar Energy Gambit)

Whether the move is part of a concerted effort to curry favor with the green crowd or not, this marks Facebook’s second pro-renewables move in the past week: Earlier, Facebook got a thumbs-up from Greenpeace, a frequent critic, when it confirmed it would build a giant data center near the Arctic Circle in Sweden that would rely almost wholly on renewable energy.

Like other solar-power systems, Cogenra’s starts with mirrors to focus sun energy. But it then turns that sunlight on photovoltaic panels, producing electricity, while also capturing the heat energy in liquid-chemical filled tubes to produce hot water. The company says its proprietary technology snares up to 80 percent of the sun’s delivered