Images by Katie Fehrenbacher, Gigaom
Apple's huge Maiden, N.C., data center has recently become something else -- a net power provider of clean energy to Duke Energy. Gigaom's Katie Fehrenbacher took a look at Apple's new power-production facilities, which generate a total of 50 MW (megawatts) of electricity for a data center that uses about 40 MW of power.
There's a 100-acre, 20 MW photovoltaic solar farm right next to Apple's data center, a second 20 MW solar farm about 15 miles away from the center, and a 10 MW fuel cell farm that's also adjacent to the data center.
The solar farms use huge arrays of photovoltaic cells that tilt to follow the sun during t
