Apple to build largest privately owned solar energy plant

Maiden Centre (rendering, from Apple) where 20 MW solar farm will provide a portion of the estimated 60 MW of electricity to run the 500,000 square foot facility.

Apple plans to build a 100-acre, 20 MW solar farm on the site of its huge new data centre in Maiden, North Carolina. It will be the largest privately owned solar facility in America, according to Apple. The purpose of the solar farm is to help Apple improve its use of renewable energy and lessen its environmental impact in its corporate facilities. It is not clear how much power the enormous, 500,000 square foot Maiden Centre actually draws, but it has been estimated at 50 to 60 megawatts.

Apple states that this component of its energy strategy is to generate its own clean, renewable energy, using photovoltaics, fuel cells, and other appropriate technologies. Onsite generation allows Apple to meet its energy needs “within our own footprint, where possible, while also minimizing grid dependence and reducing environmental impact.”

The Maiden Centre has achieved Platinum LEED certification for its use of other energy-saving and sustainability technologies.

A report available on the Apple web site states that 98 per cent of the company’s total greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the manufacture, transport, use and recycling of its products. Only 2 per cent of GHG emissions come from corporate operations such as at the North Carolina complex, but Apple wants to reduce these.

Meanwhile, Apple has been criticized for toxic pollution and working conditions at some of its overseas suppliers’ factories, especially in China. Independent environmental reviews of two of these Chinese suppliers’ factories are to be carried out in March. The reviews could expand to include other suppliers’ facilities as well. Apple plans to monitor Chinese suppliers for environmental violations, such as the reported discharge of large quantities of waste in surrounding lakes and rivers last August by an electronics factory. The same factory had a chlorine accident in 2008 which led to the hospitalization of 18 workers for chlorine poisoning.