Aerial photos show Apple's massive NC solar farm near completion

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
New photos captured from the sky show that Apple's massive solar farm set to power its North Carolina data center is almost finished.

Solar 1


The aerial images were captured by WCNC-TV and published by GigaOm this week. They offer a birds-eye view of the new expansive facility located adjacent to Apple's data center in Maiden, N.C.

The images show that major progress has been made since earlier this year, when Wired commissioned aerial photos of the property. When it becomes operational, the 100-acre solar farm will be the largest of its kind in the country.

The photos show only one of the solar farms that Apple is planning. A second facility, also 100 acres, will also be located a few miles away.

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.

Solar 2


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.

Apple also announced earlier this year that it is working with a state nonprofit organization to increase local renewable energy production.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    pdq2pdq2 Posts: 270member
    Pretty freakin awesome. There should be a press release coming from Greenpeace congratulating Apple any time now.

    Not.
  • Reply 2 of 30
    pdq2pdq2 Posts: 270member
    PS- the AI new piece hasn't been posted yet, but Samsung got slapped down again at the ITC this afternoon:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/samsung-apple-patent-idUSL1E8KDLMI20120914?type=marketsNews
  • Reply 3 of 30

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pdq2 View Post



    Pretty freakin awesome. There should be a press release coming from Greenpeace congratulating Apple any time now.

    Not.


    Nah, they'll just come up with something else that bugs them like how much of [fill in the blank with some nasty chemical] that was used to make all of the solar panels or how they destroyed the ecosystem to build it.


     


    I do wonder though, will the Cloud will work when there are clouds?  image

  • Reply 4 of 30
    Great Job Apple!!!
  • Reply 5 of 30
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pdq2 View Post



    Pretty freakin awesome. There should be a press release coming from Greenpeace congratulating Apple any time now.

    Not.


     


    Don't worry even if they do give praise (don't see it happening) it will be offset by the environmentalists crying about the destruction of pristine land, animal rights people complaining about all of the bunnies that were chased away, and finally just think of all of the harmful emissions given off during production of those solar panels...

  • Reply 6 of 30
    tylerk36tylerk36 Posts: 1,037member
    It really shows how much real-estate is needed in order to power facilities. Wow. Imagine a small city. Holy cow.
  • Reply 7 of 30

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pdq2 View Post



    Pretty freakin awesome. There should be a press release coming from Greenpeace congratulating Apple any time now.

    Not.


    No No No....they've cut far too many trees and destroyed a local ecosystem, all in the name of electricity. 


     


     


    /s

  • Reply 8 of 30
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    What a stupid waste of land. 100 acres of nature used up just to make a few idiots happy.
  • Reply 9 of 30
    No No No....they've cut far too many trees and destroyed a local ecosystem, all in the name of electricity. 


    /s

    So yer sayin the Sierra Club is gonna be al over this? And it'll be Green Peace chaining themselves to solar panels?
  • Reply 10 of 30
    deleted
  • Reply 11 of 30
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post



    What a stupid waste of land. 100 acres of nature used up just to make a few idiots happy.


    It is different in the city where we have massive parking lots for shopping centers that could be covered with collectors and provide shade for the cars at the same time. Datacenters probably use more electricity per square meter than just about any other facility I can think of.

  • Reply 12 of 30


    I can see the greenpeace promo now. "Greenpeace is saving the planet again by forcing companies like Apple to go green." Meanwhile Apple has had their own green agenda forever and have had this in the pipeline for years. Suck it greenpeace. Do your servers run off 100% renewable powered servers?

  • Reply 13 of 30

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ChristophB View Post





    So yer sayin the Sierra Club is gonna be al over this? And it'll be Green Peace chaining themselves to solar panels?


     


    Somewhere in that forest of solar panels is a homeless Spotted Owl.


     


    I can see all these reflectors throwing the sun's energy back into outer space and plunging the earth back into an ice age. You read it here first, folks.   /s

  • Reply 14 of 30

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



     

    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.


     


    Imagine how much more efficient the fuel cells would be had they built this in Washington DC.

  • Reply 15 of 30


    The panels are from SunPower, based in California. If you do some research on panel manufacturers these guys are making the absolute best and efficient ones on the market, if I am not mistaken.

  • Reply 16 of 30
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Macky the Macky View Post


     


    Imagine how much more efficient the fuel cells would be had they built this in Washington DC.



    I see what you did there..  ;-)

  • Reply 17 of 30

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by razorpit View Post


     


    Don't worry even if they do give praise (don't see it happening) it will be offset by the environmentalists crying about the destruction of pristine land, animal rights people complaining about all of the bunnies that were chased away, and finally just think of all of the harmful emissions given off during production of those solar panels...



     


    The fact is, it does look like a pretty striking amount of forest was cut down for this.  I'm not passing judgment - and in fact all environmental decisions come with up-sides and down-sides (for instance, banning clearcutting changes the ratio of tree species from their natural / historic levels, in favor of shade-loving species).  I'm just saying it is a pretty striking image.

  • Reply 18 of 30
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,007member
    I like how most of the panels are cloud-covered...
  • Reply 19 of 30
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    I'm all for green power. Heck, even solar power. I was never, ever a fan though of the kind of land-destroying "solar farms" like this. This is crazy. I'd take green forests over solar farms any day!!

    How many hundreds of thousands of acres in bare rooftops do we have in a typical large cityjQuery181010023501771502197_1347668162783 Instead of laying waste to pristine forests, and human encroachment on yet another level, why don't we mandate that all roofs (both residential and commercial) have solar panels installed?? We we not need to do this kind of mass-destruction.

    Sure, there's logistical issues and the get-off-my-lawn mentality to overcome, but in the end, having each structure generating its own power is in the long run a more stable, and consistent source.
  • Reply 20 of 30
    Wow, what are all those dark green areas off in the distance? Oh yeah forests that Apple hasn't yet cut.

    This shows full ignorance of the environment and the problems with emissions. It also explains why I'll not be buying any Apple product until whoever manages this kind of absurd development wises up to science
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