Feb 21
As kind of a ramp up for March 7th’s iPad 3 event, Apple has announced that they are planning to build a massive 20 megawatt solar array to power its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. It’ll provide 42 million kWh of clean energy each year. To help put that in perspective, the average US household uses between 8500 and 14,000 kWh per year. A similar facility could provide power to 3000-4500 homes. As solar gets cheaper and more practical, it’s great to see companies like Apple getting involved. Hopefully they’ll start incorporating solar power into their products. Maybe I’m just a future-snob, but this is 2012, why are we still using batteries?