Apple's "iCloud" is making lots of headlines this week, first with
new details of renewable energy investment attached to the company's
massive "iCloud" data center in North Carolina, followed a day later by
news that Apple has bought land next door to Facebook's data center in
Oregon for a second facility that is likely to be powered by dirty
energy. The announcements have drawn a lot of attention because data
centers use a huge amount of electricity to deliver our photos, videos,
and music to our "iDevices."
While Apple has been more than happy to draw the media's attention to
how large the solar farm is, it has kept its lips stapled firmly shut
when it comes to just how much coal will still be required to power the
cloud.
Let's take a closer look at the significance of the latest news from Apple:
How big is Apple's iCloud Data Center?
The physical size of Apple's new data center in Maiden, North
Carolina is pretty hard to hide—about 2-3 times the size of a Super
Walmart. Apple has managed, however to keep all the energy details under
tight wraps. Based on its announced $1Billion (USD) investment in
North Carolina, Greenpeace conservatively estimated last year in our
report "How Dirty is Your Data?"
that Apple's Maiden data center would demand 100 Megawatts (MW) of
power if fully operational. Translate this into homes, this would be
equivalent to the demand of 80,000 average U.S. Homes (or 250,000 EU
homes). Some analysts have indicated that Apple may be putting far more than $1B into North Carolina, having spent over $700 million just on the building, which could mean an even larger energy appetite.
The Good: Energy Efficiency & On Site Renewables!
Though it had been rumored nearly as much as the launch date of the iPad 3, in its latest facilities report
released Monday, Apple confirmed that it was putting a 20MW solar farm
on the property next to the data center. The report also disclosed that
Apple will also be adding 5MW of fuel cells, powered by biogas. These
are all smart investments by Apple, and good first steps in replacing
the dirty electricity that comes from Duke Energy, the local utility in
North Carolina.
Apple is proudly touting both the solar farm and the fuel cell
investments are the "largest end user-owned"(for solar) and "largest
non-utility installation" (for fuel cells) in the country. But how
much of the iCloud's voracious energy appetite will these on-site
renewables meet? Apple claims they will provide a "high percentage".
While some might think that a 20MW solar array + 5MW fuel cell would
mean a 25% renewable investment, here is Greenpeace's estimate of what
these investments are actually likely to provide:
| iCloud Data Center Details | Estimated Annual Energy Produced (Consumed) MWh | % of energy for 100MW Data Center |
| Estimated energy demand of $1Billion iCloud Center (Greenpeace figures) | 876,000 | 100% |
| Estimates of how much iCloud Center demand is met by renewables: | ||
| Energy from 20 MW Solar Farm (Apple figures) | 42,000 | 4.8% |
| US DoE Estimates of 20 MW Solar Farm (Maiden, NC-fixed axis) | 25,291 | 2.9% |
| US DoE Estimates of 20 MW Solar Farm (Maiden, NC 2 Axis) | 32,920 | 3.8% |
| 5 MW Fuel Cell | 43,800 | 5% |
| Combined RE (Apple figures) | 85,800 | 9.8% |
| Combined RE (DoE w/Fixed Axis) | 69,091 | 7.9% |
While the exact solar technology being deployed has not been
disclosed, Apple also appears to be very optimistic about how much
electricity they will produce from the solar farm, based on DoE
estimates of solar generation capacity for Maiden, NC. While we hope
they are right, Apple solar energy generation claims are between 27%-66%
higher than U.S. Department of Energy calculations for that latitude for a 20MW system.
So, based on our conservative estimates of the electricity demand of
the data center (100MW) and what Apple has disclosed, somewhere between
8-10% would come from renewables, or possibly slightly less given that
Apple may be building a larger facility than initially announced.
The Bad: Duke Energy=Dirty Energy
With Apple covering roughly 10% of its energy needs with on site
renewables, that means that the other 90+% comes from the local utility,
Duke Energy. According to the US EPA [eGrid, 2007] more than 90% of
the electricity generated in North Carolina comes from either coal (61%
Coal), or Nuclear (31%). Duke Energy has several large coal fired power
plants nearby the iCloud center, and if that wasn't bad enough, these
plants run on coal mined through "mountain top removal," causing the
destruction of communities and entire ecosytems in the Appalachian
region of the US.
Duke is very proud of having lured Apple to North Carolina, and
expects Apple to be "one of its largest customers." Apple could use its
standing and influence as a major customer to pressure Duke to help it
clean up the other 90% of its electricity supply, but thus far, Apple is
again silent.
The Ugly: Prineville and PacificCorp
Coincidentally, just a day after the President's day release of its
renewable energy investments for its Maiden iCloud facility, Apple
confirmed that is has bought land for another data center in Prineville,
OR, very close to Facebook's first data center, and claims that it will be "green."
While the cool climate in Prineville will help Apple cut down on energy
needed for cooling, the local utility is Pacific Corp. Oregon has a
significant renewable energy resource, but the electricity that Pacific
Corp sells to its Oregon customers is over 60% from coal, and similar to Duke Energy, remains firmly committed to coal.
What Are Other IT Companies Doing?
While Apple has apparently followed Facebook to Prineville, it has
not yet followed Facebook in committing to power its iCloud with
renewable energy. Facebook recently committed to "unfriend coal" and
power its data centers with renewable energy. As highlighted in our How Dirty is Your Data?
report, Google, Yahoo!, and others are significantly outperforming
Apple, with much higher amounts of clean energy, and now add Facebook to
that list.
Apple certainly deserves credit for putting a significant chunk of
on-site renewable energy generation capacity in North Carolina. But if
Apple is really interested in having the "high percentage" of renewable
energy it claims to want for the iCloud, it will have to look beyond the
initial steps for on-site generation and put pressure on its electric
utilities. Google has led the way by using its large profits to make
substantial investments in renewable energy and secure large long-term
purchases of wind energy. Google is now claiming to be 35% powered by
renewable energy, and we estimated Yahoo! to have over 50% of its
electricity coming from renewable sources. We still need to see further
improvement by the likes of Google and Yahoo!, but Apple lags far
behind. As Apple's operation grows with more and more data centers to
power our new digital way of life, they have a huge opportunity to be a
leader in the IT sector and make smart choices to cleanly power the
cloud.
No comments:
Post a Comment