The city of Claremont, North Carolina, has approved a new development that will allow Apple to build a new sustainable solar farm.
With an initial investment of $55 million, Apple’s latest solar farm will be a massive, 100-acre, 17.5-megawatt project, likely to take five years to complete.
Currently the value of the land is $1.4 million, but Apple will be giving two tracts back to the city for use as greenways, recreation space and other public works projects. These tracts are reportedly valued at a combined $96,000.
This will be Apple’s third solar farm in Catawba County. The first is located on the company’s data center campus in Maiden, while paperwork filed in 2013 gives Apple the rights to build another 20-megawatt farm a few miles away in Conover.
Apple’s VP of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson says Cupertino’s data centers are run off 100 percent renewable sources like solar and bio-gas, as is the case with 94 percent of Apple’s corporate structures. The next step is reportedly for brick-and-mortar Apple Stores to be taken completely off the grid — in line with Tim Cook’s vision for Apple as a sustainable “force for good” in the world.
Source: Hickory Record
