100% Renewables for all Apple installations

Apple company’s goal is to power all its corporate offices, retail stores, and data centers entirely with energy from renewable sources – solar, wind, micro-hydro, and geothermal. It has just received permission from the City Council of Claremont, North Carolina, to build a third solar array near its Maiden data center. Apple’s initial investment in the 100-acre, 17.5 MW solar farm is $55 million.

Apple Builds More Solar in NC, Reaches for ‘All Renewables’ Goal
By Linda Hardesty in Energy Manager Today 11July 2014
Apple’s 2014 Environmental Responsibility Report, covering fiscal year 2013, says the company’s goal is to power all Apple corporate offices, retail stores, and data centersentirely with energy from renewable sources – solar, wind, micro-hydro, and geothermal.
Earlier this month, Apple received permission from the City Council of Claremont, NC, to build a third solar array near its Maiden, NC, data center. Apple’s initial investment in the 100-acre, 17.5 MW solar farm is $55 million, according to the Hickory Record.
The new solar farm will be the third such installation to provide energy to the nearby data center.
The company’s environmental report states: “We’re investing in our own Apple onsite energy production, including solar, directed biogas fuel cells, and micro-hydro, as well as establishing relationships with third-party energy suppliers to source renewable energy.”
Apple’s sustainability report also states the company is building a new corporate building in Cupertino, Calif., that will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources.
Apple’s Vice President of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson told Wired that 120 of the company’s retail stores are powered by renewable energy, including its flagship stores in Palo Alto, Chicago and New York.
The company will have to convert its other 135 stores in the US to renewables to reach its goal of 100 percent green energy. And some of those stores are leased in shopping malls, which makes it harder to control the energy source. In addition, Apple has another couple hundred retail stores worldwide.
Apple has made an environmental commitment to power 100 percent of its facilities with renewables, and it recently ranked second on the EPA’s Green Power Partner list of companies using on-site green power. Jackson told Wired that the company has reached 94 percent of its goal to use 100 percent renewables.
Apple has garnered particular praise for its use of renewables to power its data centers. Earlier this month, Apple led in a Greenpeace report, which evaluated Internet companies on their use of renewables.

Source: http://www.energymanagertoday.com/