Apple, NV Energy forge deal to build 200MW Reno data center solar farm

Apple and NV Energy on Wednesday announced a deal to build an extra 200 megawatts of solar power in Nevada, aimed at supporting the former's Reno data center, with a target completion date of early 2019.

Apple will also dedicate up to 5 megawatts for NV Energy's future subscription program for residential and commercial clients, the latter company said. Apple's VP of environment, policy and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, noted that the Reno data center supports various cloud platforms including Siri, FaceTime, and iMessages.

NV Energy said it will file the application to start a power purchase agreement in "coming weeks."

The arrangement will presumably involve Apple Energy, a subsidiary created in May last year to sell excess energy into wholesale markets.

Apple has been working to power as many of its own stores and offices as possible with renewable energy. In fact the company says that its data centers are already fully powered by clean sources, which suggests that the Nevada solar expansion will be matched by an expansion in the data center itself, presumably to keep up with growing traffic in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The company's next big solar endeavor may be its Campus 2 headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., which will have panels lining the rooftops of several structures including the main "spaceship" complex. While already overdue, it should open sometime in early 2017.

10 Comments

maciekskontakt 15 Years · 1168 comments

About 7 years ago

I am nort sure who and when coined that term "solar farm" but it is misnomer. That's not farming or agriculture. It is "solar power plant". Are you growing solar panels or you use them to produce energy? Can we stick original names instead of inventing new useless once?

Mike Wuerthele 8 Years · 6906 comments

The solar industry calls them farms, and has for about 20 years, so I'm fine with using the term. I suspect it has something to do with coal plants, nuclear plants burning fuel in a relatively compact location, and the solar array is spread over a large area.

falconaire 7 Years · 6 comments

They are farming the solar energy just as the plants a farmer puts in the ground farms the nutrients from the soil and sun. The fact that they don't need a "farmer" to harvest the energy from the collectors but rather a electrician doesn't mean that it can't be called a solar farm.

mjtomlin 20 Years · 2690 comments

maciekskontakt said:

I am nort sure who and when coined that term "solar farm" but it is misnomer. That's not farming or agriculture. It is "solar power plant". Are you growing solar panels or you use them to produce energy? Can we stick original names instead of inventing new useless once?

On more simpler terms, a farm is a place for the production of something natural for harvesting, be it plants from the ground, fish from the water, or energy from the sun.

So a "solar farm" is a place where solar energy is harvested to produce electricity. It's a perfectly valid term.

fotoformat 13 Years · 302 comments

Type "solar farm" into Wikiwand and it comes up with "Photovoltaic power station".

I've always thought the term "solar farm" acceptable because they are, because of their size, generally located in rural locations. However, whilst the one on top of the new Apple spaceship HQ may qualify by size, Cupertino is hardly rural, despite the arboreal planting planned for the site.