Apple building 171 acre solar panel farm
November 3, 2011
Across the street from Apple’s $1 billion data center located in Maiden, North Carolina, the company has apparently started construction for a planned 171 acre solar panel farm. Apple is calling the project, "Project Dolphin Solar Farm A Expanded." Project Dolphin is Apple's code name for its North Carolina data center.
The data center came online in mid 2011 in order to power the company's icloud and iTunes Store cloud services. The 500,000 square foot facility requires large amounts of electricity to power and cool its racks of servers and storage arrays.
A large solar array will help to offset the reliance on coal-powered electricity from the local grid. Apple’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.
