Apple Green Data Center

Apple's main iCloud data center in Maiden, N.C., will be powered entirely by renewable energy by the end of this year with the construction of two solar array installations. This data center is not the only one of its kind made for this purpose for and by Apple, but it is the main iCloud data center. The feat will be accomplished with the construction of both new solar arrays around the existing North Carolina facility that will supply 84 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year. The new solar installations will also reportedly rely on high-energy cells and an advanced solar tracking system. 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 United States of America, and will be powered by 100 percent biogas. The solar array will exist on 250 acres of vacant land on Startown Road that was acquired by Apple. This announce comes because several activist groups have expressed their concerns over the use of dirty power by Apple's data centers, which support its Internet storage and service-hosting service iCloud. Several members of Greenpeace staged a protest this week at Apple's Cupertino campus using a giant iPod and this past April Greenpeace also made the report: “How Clean is Your Cloud? Apple had since rejected Greenpeace’s claims that they were lagging behind Google and Facebook in the green department claiming that they already had 50 percent more renewable energy in action in their data centers than they’d projected originally".

Sources: www.bloomberg.com, www.businessweek.com