Apple Purchases 200 Acres for Second Solar Farm Near North Carolina Data Center

[dolphin842]

I wonder how long it takes them to break even on these things lol?

According to some rough calculations, about 5 years:

Higher-end SunPower panels go for ~$0.90 per watt of capacity (cheaper brands are cheaper... I don't know what brand Apple is using). For 20MW, that would be about $18 million for the panels. Add $3 million for the land and you get $21 million. To round things out, we can add another $4 million for installation, maintenance, etc, for a total of $25 million.

Electricity is pretty cheap in NC, about $0.12 per kwh. Apple expects to generate 42 kwh per year, so that's roughly $5 million per year in savings. Assuming the $25 million total cost for the array, Apple will break even after about 5 years.

Of course, if Apple uses cheaper panels, gets preferential electricity rates, or if the construction/maintenance costs differ from what I assumed, the payback period would either be pushed out or occur sooner.

Environmentalists have been demanding "renewable energy" for a long time.
Solar power has been touted as wonderful and desirable for a long time.
Well, there it is. That's what solar strip-mining looks like.

With solar, you only have to clear a finite area of land once (if the land actually needs clearing). With coal, you have to blow up additional mountains every year.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Environmentalists have been demanding "renewable energy" for a long time.
Solar power has been touted as wonderful and desirable for a long time.
Well, there it is. That's what solar strip-mining looks like.

Strip mining? All I see are solar panels mounted on top of poles

You blind bro?

Electricity is pretty cheap in NC, about $0.12 per kwh. Apple expects to generate 42 kwh per year, so that's roughly $5 million per year in savings. Assuming the $25 million total cost for the array, Apple will break even after about 5 years.

Between the Fuel Cells and Solar Panels, the DC can also generate more instantaneous power than it needs. It can sell excess energy back to the grid at a Premium (well above 0.12 cent/KWH) to some utility that needs it to meet the North Carolina RPS.

 

[quasinormal]

Environmentalists have been demanding "renewable energy" for a long time.
Solar power has been touted as wonderful and desirable for a long time.
Well, there it is. That's what solar strip-mining looks like.

Isn't it funny how conservatives only care about the environment when solar is supposedly trashing it.

Deal with it. It is what you'll be using when your energy welfare is finally curbed and you take some personal responsibility for your energy consumption.

 

[greenmeanie]

200 more acres taking from the ANIMALS.
So now we will hear that there are to many deer ETC ETC and how they need to kill them off.
Thanks Apple.

 

[dolphin842]

200 more acres taking from the ANIMALS.
So now we will hear that there are to many deer ETC ETC and how they need to kill them off.
Thanks Apple.

In many places there are too much deer, due to removal of apex predeators and other factors (pdf).

 

[Jobsian]

But will it blend





nicely into its surroundings?

 

[ctdonath]

Strip mining? All I see are solar panels mounted on top of poles

...which are removing most of the incoming light from whatever lived there, to wit the solar equivalent of strip-mining.

 

[Pakaku]

Data centers always have redundancy built in.

But do data centers have redundancy built in?

And what about redundancy?

 

[ctdonath]

Isn't it funny how conservatives only care about the environment when solar is supposedly trashing it.

Deal with it. It is what you'll be using when your energy welfare is finally curbed and you take some personal responsibility for your energy consumption.

Project much?

Conservation is not the opposite of environmentalism, they overlap a lot. I'm rather fond of solar, and keep investigating converting my home to it (like many conservatives do); it's just not cost effective yet.

Just because I'm pointing out the much-overlooked reality of solar doesn't mean I'm evil. I don't have a problem with renewable power, just with the "it's perfect and we need to replace all other non-renewable power sources NOW regardless of impact" attitude which is shocked when the impact of non-renewable power on a viable scale is encountered.

Say, how's your off-grid energy project going? What kind of power inverter are you using? (That's my starting point, am looking for one.) How many deep-cycle batteries are you using to cover peak energy consumption periods? ...oh, you're not? you haven't taken serious personal responsibility for your energy consumption? Ah, I see...

 

[Liquorpuki]

...which are removing most of the incoming light from whatever lived there, to wit the solar equivalent of strip-mining.

By that definition, constructing anything = strip-mining

Just because I'm pointing out the much-overlooked reality of solar doesn't mean I'm evil. I don't have a problem with renewable power, just with the "it's perfect and we need to replace all other non-renewable power sources NOW regardless of impact" attitude which is shocked when the impact of non-renewable power on a viable scale is encountered.

It's not possible to replace fossil fuel based generation with renewables anyway which is why most US states and the European Union cap renewable penetration at 33%. Anything more and reliability will start going way down and blackouts will start going way up.

 

[dolphin842]

Just because I'm pointing out the much-overlooked reality of solar doesn't mean I'm evil. I don't have a problem with renewable power, just with the "it's perfect and we need to replace all other non-renewable power sources NOW regardless of impact" attitude which is shocked when the impact of non-renewable power on a viable scale is encountered.

There aren't many people with significant political clout who claim that solar is infallible. Any sober analyst will list the tradeoffs inherent with each energy source. Personally, I'm of the opinion that utility-scale solar + smart grid load balancing can address the two main tradeoffs of solar (upfront cost and variability), whereas the price volatility and ecological effects inherent to fossil fuel use are less-easily addressed.

Say, how's your off-grid energy project going? What kind of power inverter are you using? (That's my starting point, am looking for one.) How many deep-cycle batteries are you using to cover peak energy consumption periods? ...oh, you're not? you haven't taken serious personal responsibility for your energy consumption? Ah, I see...

If local utility regulations allow it, you can get what's called a "buy-all, sell-all" arrangement, where all your PV gets sold to the grid and your home continues to get power from the utility just like before. Without having to pay for storage (along with the possibility of getting incentivized rates for selling solar power), it's usually much more cost-effective.

 

[fastlanephil]

200 acres for $3 million? Now that is one sweet deal.

Bare land is hard to sell right now.

Fifteen thousand per acre with a two hundred acre sale sounds like fair market value in a rural area.

 

[iSamurai]

They should rather build a solar farm where there's not many trees (i.e. desert) to bulldoze and use that to contribute to the local grid whilst powering the data centre from conventional sources, so the net emissions generated is still the same.

 

[macs4nw]

Surprisingly, I haven't seen a reaction by GREENPEACE yet. They weren't too positive in their reaction when the first MAIDEN solar farm, across the street from the data centre, was announced.

 

[quasinormal]

oh, you're not? you haven't taken serious personal responsibility for your energy consumption? Ah, I see...

Actually my abode is off the grid so I generate my own electricity. I need to watch every amp hour.

 

[ctdonath]

Actually my abode is off the grid so I generate my own electricity. I need to watch every amp hour.

If so, then major kudos to you.

You'll understand if I was skeptical - and likewise annoyed at being wantonly misportrayed.

 

[e1ryan]

Why North Carolina?

NC is not what I would call the best US location for something dependent on sunlight.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html

 

[quasinormal]

If so, then major kudos to you.

You'll understand if I was skeptical - and likewise annoyed at being wantonly misportrayed.

My apologies for any offence. I quoted your post at random.

 

[danpass]

Nuclear would have been nice (totally weather/sunlight independent).

Today's technology allows for a much smaller footprint and likely be able to build it underground (ie: highly weather resistant)


Not green?


You know how much fossil fuel US aircraft carriers and submarines they themselves burn in their decades long service life?

None.

 

[Liquorpuki]

NC is not what I would call the best US location for something dependent on sunlight.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html

They're datacenters. They need to be kept cool.

You stick a datacenter out in the middle of the desert. Yeah you'll get more light but you'll more than pay for it in cooling costs

 

[andrewpawl]

The solar facility will generate much more energy than the DC needs so Apple will sell that energy to the utility. It will net out that Apple runs only on renewable, but most of the time it will not be running on electricity generated by the solar facility.

solar energy residential

 

[the-wanderer]

again what morons at apple, putting a huge solar farm in north carolina.

north carolina is below average for solar
http://www.wri.org/image/view/11262/_original

no one ever heard of florida? sunshine state

arizona? new mexico?

because NC has low sunshine this means to get the same amount of power as would be obtained in arizona, they had to double the size of the solar farm.

 

[CASLondon]

again what morons at apple, putting a huge solar farm in north carolina.

north carolina is below average for solar
http://www.wri.org/image/view/11262/_original

no one ever heard of florida? sunshine state

arizona? new mexico?

because NC has low sunshine this means to get the same amount of power as would be obtained in arizona, they had to double the size of the solar farm.

LOL, yes what morons. And when I stick my head out the window and its cold, I know there's no such thing as climate change. How these "idiots" can make decisions like this I don't know....

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/10-reasons-apple-facebook-google-chose-north-carolina-for-their-mega-data-centers/