Apple buys 200 acres of land for $3M to build second NC solar farm
Apple has purchased another 200 acres in North Carolina in order to build another solar farm to help power its massive iCloud data center.
The $3 million land deal was detailed on Thursday by the Hickory Daily Record, which revealed that Apple will buy nearly 220 total acres in North Carolina's Catawba County. The property a few miles away from Apple's data center is expected to house a second solar farm that will produce 42 million kWh of electricity.
The new facility will be located adjacent to a new North Carolina Data Campus, a multi-jurisdictional facility that will add infrastructure to the area in an attempt to attract other companies looking to build data centers.
Apple's plans for its second solar farm are coming together as the company is nearing completion on the first massive facility. The 100-acre solar farm is set to go online later this year and will be the largest of its kind in the country.
Together, the solar facilities will supply 84 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable energy annually. The solar array will allow the data center to use 100 percent renewable energy by the end of this year.
The solar plants will also be supported by a 5-megawatt fuel cell installation that will open later this year. Apple has said it will be the largest non-utility fuel cell installation operating anywhere in the country, and will be powered by 100 percent biogas.
18 Comments
Has any one done the math at to how much money it cost to maintain these facilities? It has to be so much less than what lets say IBM spends on their data facilities.
1) Labor.
2) Cleaning the solar panels.
3) Upkeep on the grounds. Removing the weeds and so on.
4) Security.
5) All other matters.
I am sure Greenpeace will complain that Apple's plans do not provide for 200% of their power needs.
I totally support green energy, however I do NOT support this land-hogging method though. If every large company decided to do this, we'd have no more forests sucking up carbon. This is wasteful.
I still believe if the federal government mandated that all structures (both commercial and residential) have solar panels installed on their roof, and pump excess back into the grid it would be a far better way to conserve precious land. I hate government getting on my lawn, but this would be the exception and for the greater good.
We have literally hundreds of millions of acres of rooftops that are not utilized that we could put to use.
Next thing would be to make solar panels in a much more environmental way. Current methods aren't very green either.
[quote name="sflocal" url="/t/152761/apple-buys-200-acres-of-land-for-3m-to-build-second-nc-solar-farm#post_2194423"]I totally support green energy, however I do NOT support this land-hogging method though. If every large company decided to do this, we'd have no more forests sucking up carbon. This is wasteful. I still believe if the federal government mandated that all structures (both commercial and residential) have solar panels installed on their roof, and pump excess back into the grid it would be a far better way to conserve precious land. I hate government getting on my lawn, but this would be the exception and for the greater good. We have literally hundreds of millions of acres of rooftops that are not utilized that we could put to use. Next thing would be to make solar panels in a much more environmental way. Current methods aren't very green either. [/quote] There's a lot to be said for that. However, it's not clear that Apple will be doing massive logging. Much of the land in NC was logged years ago and is currently farm land.
We have literally hundreds of millions of acres of rooftops that are not utilized that we could put to use.
And the same of unused desert.