Apple Building Solar Farm at North Carolina Data Center

The Charlotte Observer reports that Apple has begun work on a solar farm adjacent to its massive new data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The new solar farm will likely generate a significant amount of power for the facility, although Catawba County officials have yet to see building plans for the facilities.

Apple has quietly begun work on a solar farm that apparently could help power its sprawling data center in southern Catawba County.

Permits issued by Catawba County show that the Cupertino, Calif., company has been approved to reshape the slope of some of the 171 acres of vacant land it owns on Startown Road, opposite the data center, in preparation of building a solar farm.

Permits issued so far only address grading and erosion control on the site, but Apple has disclosed in those permit applications that it intends to build a solar farm on the site.

The Hickory Daily Record adds some detail to the situation, noting the plot of land is indeed across the street from the data center and that nearby residents have been upset by the smoke from fires set to help clear the land.

That smoke is Apple clearing more than 100 acres of land across from its data center, which opened earlier this year at 5977 Startown Road. It was reported earlier this year that the data facility will be a cloud-computing center for Apple.

Across the street, at 6028 Startown Road, Apple has filed a soil erosion permit with Catawba County for about 170 acres of land. Apple applied for the permit on Aug. 9, and the county reviewed and approved it on Aug. 10.

In the application, Apple described the work as “Solar panel farm A” for the 170.99 acres of land.

apple data center 70 acres
Apple's initial 70-acre purchase at solar farm site of 6028 Startown Road in Maiden, NC

The erosion control permit (PDF) indicates that Apple has pieced together three separate parcels of land for the solar farm, with the most recent addition coming just last week. An initial 70-acre parcel at the project address was identified as having been bought by Apple last October, but it is unclear what constitutes the remaining 100 acres of the project site.

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb 3

iOS 18.3 Leak Provides Clue About iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and iPad Air 7 Launch Timing

Wednesday January 22, 2025 9:39 am PST by
New information has surfaced that indicates the rumored iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and new iPad Air models are nearing launch. A private account on social media platform X today revealed that iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on all of those upcoming devices when they are released. It is still unclear exactly when the devices will launch, but this information suggests that Apple will...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...

Top Rated Comments

Matthew Yohe Avatar
173 months ago
Waste of time and land...

Yes, harnessing free power from the sun is such a waste of time.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArcaneDevice Avatar
173 months ago
Inefficiently harnessing power from the sun at a premium infrastructure cost, yeah waste of time and money and real estate.
Waste of money? You are talking about a company that has billions of cash to spend and builds spaceship buildings and stores made completely out of glass and not just regular glass but ultra-expensive panels that have to be specially made.

Are you complaining that they could be using just regular bricks for those too because it would save them all that money they could have just sitting around doing nothing?

I would rather see the land being used as a cutting-edge solar farm than another Walmart or landfill. Especially when it's another project that is defining NC as a technology hub and a place that looks to the future instead of being stuck in the past and hoping things might go back to the industries of old.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
marcusj0015 Avatar
173 months ago
This make me SO happy.

why don't they put solar panels and wind mills on top of the data center itself, aswell?
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Peace Avatar
173 months ago
Why all the hate ? There are solar farms all over Europe. And parts of America.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Andronicus Avatar
173 months ago
Go green Apple. :rolleyes:
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
NorCalLights Avatar
173 months ago
Unless Apple has reinvented solar power... ?

Last I knew, solar power was incredibly inefficient... so I'm going to second you on saying it's a waste.

Apple hasn't reinvented solar power, but plenty of other companies have.

Both photovoltaic and solar-thermal power-plant scale farms are already viable, and with the projected increasing costs of energy, they're looking like a better bet every day.

Aside from the large up-front costs, (which a company like Apple has no problem covering), there really aren't any drawbacks.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)