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Apple Building Solar Farm In North Carolina
jfruhlinger writes "Apple's North Carolina data center will, it appears, be turning greener: the company is building a dedicated solar farm to power it. That would be a welcome turnaround for proponents of green energy, as Apple was lured to North Carolina in part by the promise of cheap electricity from coal-fired plants."
I bet they get 99.9999% reliability for their electricity... Sounds just like what the data center needs.
Yes but it will produce Apple electricity, which will only work with Apple products (such as the "licensed only" chargers for the iPhone). Sure it's possible to adapt the electricity to work with non-Apple products, but then they'll sue you for it.
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but the power co can say you sell back the power and we can use it any way you want or we can cut you off and I don't think solar works at night.
If this were Google, they'd be giving away the energy. Well, after they've used it and waited an appropriate amount of time.
Solar must be viable because if it wasn't profitable, they wouldn't do it, right?
Corporations always do what's in their best interest.
It's always been ok to convert non-Apple electricity to Apple electricity, that's why they license five volt adapters.
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Now they are going to claim they invented the sun, and the stupid fucking patent office will grant it to them.
I applaud this move by Apple. I'm a big proponet of solar power. The more companies that integrate solar into their energy needs, the less expensive the technology becomes. It's finally getting to the point where an average homeowner can break even on an investment in solar.
You sure the facts are correct? I am pretty sure Oracle bought Sun, not Apple.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The amount of incoming solar radiation increases significantly the closer to the equator you are.
I live in Toronto, Canada, and not long ago the provincial government here made a big deal about setting up a solar array here (of course, with a significant govt subsidy).
A critic pointed out how much cheaper it would have been to buy land in Texas, set up a solar array, and send the power back (despite losses in transmission).
But then the govt wouldn't have had the nice photo-op...
You'll probably get some opposition to that . . .
For a datacenter, I imagine they'll be using grid and solar together. What the solar can't supply, the grid does instead. That way you get the solar plant running continually at capacity, but aren't held back by the irregularity of weather.
HTH.
"It's finally getting to the point where an average homeowner can break even on an investment in solar."
Yeah, enough subsidies from the government you might be able to afford it as well.
Sans subsidies, a decade or more.
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Typical high-density data center power consumption: 500w/m^2 for entire building, per floor.
Max solar flux in NC about 1000w/m^2. But only for 6 hours a day on average. At 12% efficiency, that's 30 watts per square meter average. So the solar farm has to be 16x the size of the data center.
We'll be able to see from the aerial photos whether they put in enough panels that it matters.
It is great that they decided to turn green. Good for the environment
www.wuploaded.org
Greenpeace is going to have a shitfit over them using chemicals, and ./ers will claim that Apple will now claim they invented solar power.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I have a 15Kw Solar Panel on my roof. My Electric bill last year was £-126.00. Yep, the power company paid me... I guess I'm a Power Company.
I'm in the UK at a latitude just a little bit south of 55North.
You americans should go look at an Atlas and see where 55North comes on your side of the Atlantic.
Too lazy eh?
try this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55th_parallel_north
Does the southern edge of Hudson Bay ring any bells.
I applaud Apple for this and anything they can do to reduce their reliance upon fossil fuels the better. I hope that other companies can follow suit and do the same.
However (but and there is one...), Apple should have bought a few square miles in somewhere like Az, Nm or even Tx and build their power station there. There is not doubt that there are more sunny days in that part of the US than in North Carolina.
Still, 'Every little helps'...
Too bad Apple actually cares about product quality. Things are licensed for a reason, sometimes, besides pure profit.
People are bitching about solar power too? No wonder conservatives say that environmentalists want to turn back the clock on civilization.
Most of North Carolina's cheap electricity comes from nuclear power plants. I'm curious where these coal burning plants Apple was lured by are...
I believe you forgot to calculate your stove/fireplace efficiency, which will cause your calculations to significantly overstate the value of your firewood. Let's say you get 40% heating efficiency out of your hardwood.
Also, the CanSolair spec sheet conflicts with unit conversion. 10,000 BTU/hr is 2900 W. Their spec sheet lists 1200 – 2400 W, so let's use the 2400 W figure, though this was cited as being the noon-hour, highest output value. I am going to decline to calculate an integral for the total estimated daily output based on solar incidence angle, etc, and we will just use your 4 hr period.
Also, I am going to abjure the "rods per hogshead" Imperial units and calculate using SI units.
Firewood: 22 million BTU per cord * 3.5 cords * 40% = 32 GJ per season (Google Calculator is made of win)
CanSolair: 2400 W * 4 hours/day * 145 days = 5 GJ per season
5/32 is roughly 15%, so one might expect you to be able to shave off up to $150 per year. Again, these estimates likely favor the CanSolair by overstating the expected output (also, don't forget the electrical cost of running the blower for the CanSolair). Calculating the present value of that annuity is left as an exercise for the reader.
PS. Okay, I lied about not doing the calculus (couldn't resist). I calculated the value of a sawtooth integral (rather than a sineform), presuming 8 hours of sunlight per day and a triangular slope that started at 1200 W at dawn, peaked to 2400 W at noon, and then doubled that for the afternoon - dusk period. I have no idea if the CanSolair actually delivers 1200 W at dawn, but we are trying to give it the fairest possible shake here. The CanSolair delivered an additional ~50% in this flawed estimate vs. the one in the above calculations.
I'm sure that children working 16 hrs / day in China to build Apple products will rejoice hearing these wonderful news.
Are apple good or evil today. Wait, what am i saying, this is slashdot....
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Apple didn't get where they are my malinvesting in feel good projects like green energy. Sorry to disappoint the proponents of green energy, but you have pretty much been proven a fraud, to the economic ruin of us all.
an ill wind that blows no good
Perhaps they can make it in memory of Steve Jobs. That would be a nice gesture. Put part if it on the grid so to put electricity back in the system. And the revenue can be used to decrease everyone hydro bill. :)
[($)]
Fluorescent is wasteful, LED has gone past HID efficiencies. This will make those energy savings go even further.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
When I saw the post I was wondering how adding solar cells would make Apple even more evil to the Slashdot crowd. No evil comments but no positive ones either. Honestly can Apple do anything positive to most of the Slashdot community? People complain that there's Microsoft bashing but there's always people defending Microsoft it's Apple that is constantly trashed. Yes they aren't open sourced, neither is Microsoft, and yes they tend to close their products to competitors but that's business. Don't like them don't buy their products, problem solved. I have problems with Apple but it's legit stuff like them hosing Final Cut Pro leaving the pros in a lurch. Bad move. They want to sell iPhones to people that think CD trays are cup holders and not support the professional market. There's always Media Studio Pro and many of us left for the last pro option out there. Just wish I hadn't wasted years with Final Cut now. Bash Apple for legit reasons not because they dress funny. The solar panels are a move in a positive direction so give them a tiny bit of credit. And no obviously roof top solar cells can't power a data center as some have pointed out but it's called a bloody offset. It's like buying a car that gets 50 mpg instead of one that gets 15 MPG. Yes it still burns gas but it burns a whole lot less. Once again at least acknowledge the attempt!
I think the story behind the story has nothing to do with Green this or that. It has to do with price stability. Duke-Progress, of which I am a customer is applying for a massive rate hike to recoup the costs of the merger between Duke and Progress which was supposed to be merited on the efficiencies and cost savings which would result.
Isn't that awesome? Create the largest power company in the US, tell the regulatory agencies it's to give better rates. Then jack the rates to the sky after the merger completes. And NC and the Federal government have, to my knowledge never turned them down for a rate hike.
Solar has government subsidies behind its manufacture and tax breaks to the company utilizing it. It's possible that solar isn't profitable without our tax dollars supporting it.
Solar also has fewer regulatory hurdles to overcome than traditional sources of energy, lowering its relative cost for power companies to implement.
I have to say I like the new Apple management. What changed?
Oh, right.
iCloud...Only accessible if there are no clouds.