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Apple building 171 acre solar panel farm to power NC data center

Apple plans to further increase the eco-friendliness of its $1 billion data …

Racks of servers that populate Apple's $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina.
Racks of servers that populate Apple's $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina.
Image courtesy of Apple Inc.

Apple has apparently begun the early stages of construction for a planned 171 acre solar panel farm across the street from its $1 billion data center located in Maiden, North Carolina. According to permits filed with Catawba County, the land is already being reworked under strict erosion control ordinances for what Apple is calling "Project Dolphin Solar Farm A Expanded." Project Dolphin is Apple's code name for its North Carolina data center.

Apple's huge data center came online in the spring of 2011 in order to power the company's iCloud and iTunes Store cloud services. The 500,000 square foot facility—described as "big-ass" by one data center expert—requires massive amounts of electricity to power and cool its racks of servers and storage arrays. Steve Jobs called the building "as eco-friendly as you can make a modern data center," thanks in no small part to its designer, the late data center efficiency expert Olivier Sanche. Despite this, Greenpeace criticized the fact that the area of North Carolina where it is located has one of the "dirtiest [power] generation mixes in the US," a combination of coal and nuclear power.

A large solar array should help offset the reliance on coal-powered electricity from the local grid. Apple has noted in the past that its Cork, Ireland, and Elk Grove, California facilities both run on 100 percent renewable energy. The company's Austin, Texas offices use some renewable energy sources as well. The solar array appears to be part of Apple's overall commitment to making its operations as green as possible.

No details about the planned solar panel array or its potential power output are known at this time, but the Charlotte Observer noted that more details will likely become publicly available when Apple files for a building permit, according to Catawba County engineer Toni Norton.

Channel Ars Technica