Apple Now Uses 100% Renewable Energy At All Its Data Centers

Apple today updated its Renewable Energy Report to reveal that the company is now using 100% renewable energy at all of its data centers and its headquarters.

Our goal is to power every facility at Apple entirely with energy from renewable sources — solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal. So we’re investing in our own onsite energy production, establishing relationships with suppliers to procure renewable energy off the grid, and reducing our energy needs even as our employee base grows.

Our investments are paying off. We’ve already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. And for all of Apple’s corporate facilities worldwide, we’re at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases. We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.


The company also notes that last year it completed the largest end user-owned, onsite solar photovoltaic array on land surrounding its data center in Maiden, North Carolina.

This 100-acre, 20-megawatt (MW) facility has an annual production capacity of 42 million kWh of clean, low-carbon, renewable energy. And we’re currently building a second 20-MW solar photovoltaic facility on nearby land that should be operational in late 2013.

Additionally, they've built an onsite 10-MW fuel cell installation using directed biogas which can provide more that 82 million kWh of 24/7 baseload renewable energy each year. It's said to be the largest non-utility fuel cell installation in the country.

All told, Apple will be producing 167 million kWh of renewable energy at the site. That's enough to power 17,600 homes for one year.


Read More [via Bloomberg]