Apple datacenters now fully powered by renewable energy
updated 02:56 pm EDT, Thu March 21, 2013
Company still working toward goal of complete renewable energy use
Apple's datacenters are now fully supplied by renewable energy, the company has announced on its website. The company is relying mostly on a mix of solar, wind, and geothermal energy. At a facility in Maiden, North Carolina, it is also relying on fuel cells that convert biogas; the main source of energy though is a 100-acre solar farm, which became fully operational in December. The company says it has met a goal of producing 60 percent of the center's energy on-site.
An upcoming datacenter in Prineville, Oregon is set to operate on wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal sources. Apple says that it is still working on making its corporate facilities as green; offices in Austin, Cork, Cupertino, Elk Grove, and Munich are now supplied by renewables, as well as several sites in Australia, but only 75 percent of the company's global corporate power consumption was renewable at the end of 2012. The figure does represent a 114 percent growth over 2010, and CEO Tim Cook has been aiming at making the company totally powered by renewable energy by the end of 2013.
During 2012 Apple was repeatedly criticized by Greenpeace and other environmental groups for using dirty, dangerous and/or non-renewable power for its datacenters. It was also taken to task for holding back information on topics like greenhouse gas emissions, although it does report some of those figures via its website.
