Apple Begins “Project Dolphin Solar Farm” To Power Its Massive iDataCenter

Apple has started working on a solar farm adjacent to its massive new data center in North Carolina, according to a report by The Charlotte Observer (via Gigaom). Dubbed as Project Dolphin Solar Farm, the solar project will be built on 171 acres of land across the street from Apple’s planned $1 billion data center. It was previously codenamed Project Dolphin but is now being calle iDataCenter which will also partly serve the iCloud. The new solar farm will likely generate a significant amount of power for the facility, although the local officials have not yet seen any building plans for the new facility.

Citing from the source:

Apple has quietly begun work on a solar farm that apparently could help power its sprawling data center in southern Catawba County.

Permits issued by Catawba County show that the Cupertino, Calif., company has been approved to reshape the slope of some of the 171 acres of vacant land it owns on Startown Road, opposite the data center, in preparation of building a solar farm.

North Carolina has one of the dirtiest electrical grids in the country, with 61 percent of the power coming from coal, and 31 percent from nuclear. It also has some of the cheapest power, which is likely why Apple decided to build its data center there.

There are are no specific details as to who exactly will be building the solar farm. However, it has become very important for Apple and many other companies to build data centers with clean energy, something which Google is already doing.

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