Folks love to complain about Apple, but I figure that a lot of that bitching is down to the inadequacies of the bitchers themselves: It’s easier to just whine about something than to strive for greatness yourself. Which is to say, Apple is far from perfect, but it tries harder than almost anyone else. And the new solar farm which powers it’s North Carolina data center is a great example of this.
One of the advantages of having a company founded by California hippies is that it can totally get away with spendings hundreds of millions of dollars on solar panels and fuel cells. Two solar farms and a fuel-cell center (the green version of a UPS?) have now opened for business and are providing more than enough juice to power the data center, putting out 50MW (the center requires 40MW, according to GigaOm’s Katie Fehrenbacher).
The second, further-away solar farm actually pumps its power into the grid, and Apple then takes the equivalent back out in the conventional manner. But the best part is that Apple has actually contracted somebody to graze sheep around the panels to keep the grass under control.
This is pretty great. At home I try to use as little power as possible, but there’s not much I can do about the power needed to supply the internet itself. Now Apple is setting an example, hopefully other companies will copy it as enthusiastically as they copy Apple’s hardware and software designs.
Source: GigaOm
Charlie Sorrel writes reviews and how-tos. Follow Charlie on Twitter at @mistercharlie, and at micro.blog on @mistercharlie
One response to “Apple’s North Carolina Data Center Now Entirely Powered By The Sun (With Some Help From Sheep)”
Charlie, do you even read articles you link to, or do you just spout off whatever’s getting you the most page clicks?
“Because of state laws, the energy is being pumped into the power grid, and Apple then uses the energy it needs from the grid. But this setup also means Apple doesn’t need large batteries, or other forms of energy storage, to keep the power going when the sun goes down and its solar panels stop producing electricity.”
Apple’s North Carolina data center isn’t “entirely powered by the sun” as your linkbait headline claims. It is entirely OFFSET by the sun. Meaning the power consumption is offset by the solar power they injected back into the grid.
Furthermore, to anyone familiar with solar power or power distribution in general, it is immediately obvious that that is at PEAK capacity and efficiency. Peak power and efficiency rarely happens. Also, the unit of Megawatt is instantaneous, not time-dependent. So this means that the data center’s INSTANTANEOUS load is offset by the INSTANTANEOUS contribution of the solar field. Their 40MW load that occurs at night when the photovoltaics aren’t active is still drawing directly from the grid and not being offset.
It’s no doubt impressive, but completely unworthy of Charlie’s typically uninformed and sensationalist reporting.