If the plans submitted to the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) are approved, the facility, which serves Apple’s Maiden data centre, will be the largest non-utility fuel cell installation operating anywhere in the U.S. - a crown which it briefly lost to ebay's 6 MW facility in Utah - also fuelled by landfill gas. In total the data centre will draw around 20 MW of power at full capacity, of which it will produce some 60% on-site.
The recently completed Maiden data centre will utilise biogas to offset natural gas use and Apple states that the commissioning of the facility is part of its commitment to reduce the company’s environmental impact through energy efficient, green building design. The building is already extremely energy efficient and has earned a coveted LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council. The biogas plant is located adjacent to the data centre and will ultimately be powered by 100% biogas providing over 40 million kWh of 24x7 baseload renewable energy annually.
The company also plans to build the nation’s largest end user-owned onsite solar array on land surrounding the data centre. The 100 acre, 20MW facility, when complete, will supply 42 million kWh of renewable energy annually.
The application to NCUC stated that the upgraded facility would feature 50 individual fuel cells located on a single site adjacent to the data centre and will be fuelled by directed biogas from landfill - a renewable energy source as defined by the Commissions Order.
The projected dependable capacity of the upgraded plant will be 9.6 MW, with 10 MW being the maximum nameplate capacity. The initial 4.8 MW fuel cell installation began start-up and testing in October 2012 and the full 10 MW plant is anticipated to be operational by January 2013.
Sunnyvale, California based fuel cell specialist, Bloom Energy will supply the solid oxide fuel cells being installed at the plant.
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