Apple’s Solar Power Plants Igniting U.S. Clean Energy Economy

Apple is very much into solar power. The company has made a commitment to clean energy and has been building solar power plants both in the U.S. and China. I’ve looked into Apple’s efforts with solar energy and its many new installations. I want to put what Apple is doing in perspective with some numbers.

Typical solar farm. Via Shutterstock

The recent news item that triggered my research into Apple and solar power was this announcement from NV Energy, Inc.

NV Energy and Apple announced today [Jan 25] they have reached an agreement to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019. The projects will support Apple’s renewable energy needs for its Reno data center.

That number, 200 MW (megawatts), caught my eye, because that’s a pretty good-sized solar energy plant. The physicist in me started thinking about the numbers.

Perspectives

First, commercial solar power plants tend to be somewhat smaller than coal or nuclear plants. They range in size from about 10- 13 MW to 280 MW. By contrast….

A typical (500 megawatt) coal plant burns 1.4 million tons of coal each year. As of 2012, there are 572 operational coal plants in the U.S. with an average capacity of 547 megawatts.

Nuclear power plants, of which the U.S. has 61 sites, tend to be about the same size as coal plants. That is, each reactor. Some sites have multiple reactors.

Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska has one reactor with the smallest generating capacity1 of 479 megawatts (MW). The Palo Verde plant in Arizona has three reactors and has the largest combined generating capacity of about 3,937 MW.

One solar plant that particularly intrigues me, one done in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, is the Crescent Dunes power plant near Tonopah, Nevada. Instead of photovoltaic cells (PV), it uses heliostats (moving, aluminum mirrors that follow the sun), to focus sunlight onto a 640 ft (195 m) tower and heat salt to molten. The environmentally friendly molten salt can be stored and can generate steam and electricity even when the sun is down. Its power capacity is 110 MW.

Crescent Dunes solar power plant near Tonopah, NV

What can a megawatt (MW) of power do? The average home in the U.S. consumes 10,837 kW-h (kilowatt-hours) of energy in a year. That’s an average power draw of 1.23 kilowatts. And so a megawatt (MW) of power can sustain about 800 homes. A mere 50 MW solar power plant could sustain 40,000 homes (in the daytime).

As an aside, the average electricity cost in the U.S. (2015) was 12.7 cents/kW-h. The highest rate is Hawaii at 27.1 cents/kW-h. The lowest is Louisiana at 9.05 cents/kW-h.

How Many Plants Does Apple Have?

A quick check of Google shows that Apple has or is building many solar power plants. It’s doing this by itself in some cases or in concert with local power companies that have expertise in solar power. Here’s what I found in a casual search. No one website lists them all that I could find. But Apple notes that a total of 4 GW of capacity are in the planning stages.

1. California Flats Solar Project, Monterey County – 280 MW* (First Solar + Apple)


2. Mesa, AZ, 50 MW


3. Florence, AZ, 50 MW


4. Maiden, NC, 12 MW


5. Claremont, NC, 17.5 MW


6. Conover, NC, 10 MW


7. Boulder City, NV, 100 MW


8. Reno, NV, 200 MW*

*indicates planned or under construction.

Apple: “Our 4 gigawatts of clean energy projects around the world will avoid more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution by 2020. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 6 million cars off the road for one year.”

A very good summary of Apple’s ambitious plans can be found here: “How Apple’s Solar Strategy Evolved.” What may not be well known is Apple’s work with China. From Apple’s website:

We’re building 200 megawatts of solar in China, starting with a 170-megawatt solar project in Inner Mongolia, to begin offsetting our manufacturing emissions. We’re also working with suppliers to install more than 4 gigawatts of new clean energy worldwide, including 2 gigawatts in China by 2020. And over the next two years, Foxconn will install 400 megawatts of solar to cover the energy use of its iPhone final production facility in Zhengzhou.

Let There Be Light

Apple is doing an amazing job of doing its part to provide clean, renewable energy for its own corporate and data center needs as well as, in some cases, the community. What it doesn’t use for itself, it will sell on the open market.

How the new administration approaches renewable energy, especially solar power, remains to be seen. But concerns are being expressed. No doubt, Apple’s commitment to solar power technology both in the U.S. and China has—and and will again—come up in discussions with the new U.S. president.

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