Apple to Build 200 Megawatts of Solar Energy in Nevada Through NV Energy Partnership

Apple and Nevada energy company NV Energy today announced ('http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nv-energy-announces-solar-agreement-with-apple-300396620.html') a new agreement that will see the two partnering to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy

5 more of these will almost be enough for time travel.

Powered by 100% solar energy...except for in the night when its powered by nuclear or coal most likely. At least with companies like Tesla they can charge batteries in the day time but with Apple their data centres don't shut down when the sun goes down

The solar farms produce enough excess during the day to offset the non-solar usage at night. That means somewhere less coal or uranium is getting burned to the same degree or better than if the solar plant could run during the night. Since all the energy gets mixed into the grid anyway, it doesn't make any sense to talk about where the energy actually goes and comes from. So long as it's made cleanly, the right customer pays for it, and some dirty energy is scaled back to compensate.

I can't speak for the US energy grid but other countries are developing batteries in the 200MW range to address the future issue of supply peaks failing to meet demand peaks.

5 more of these will almost be enough for time travel.

Well, they've been promoting their Time Machine for years after all... :D

Anyway, this is very good news. Especially when others are taking the concept of a huge pipeline rather more literally than Apple do...

5 more of these will almost be enough for time travel.

Now this one will blow your mind then:

Last year, China installed 15.13GW of new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, reaching a cumulative solar capacity of 43.48GW.
China's sets a 2020 solar PV target at 150GW to 200GW.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3147845/sustainable-it/china-leads-the-world-in-solar-power-installations.html ('http://www.computerworld.com/article/3147845/sustainable-it/china-leads-the-world-in-solar-power-installations.html')

Powered by 100% solar energy...except for in the night when its powered by nuclear or coal most likely. At least with companies like Tesla they can charge batteries in the day time but with Apple their data centres don't shut down when the sun goes down

That is pure garbage. The amount of power that needs to be generated at night remains constant

Grid demand at night is much lower than during the daytime. Peak solar hours correspond fairly well (but not perfectly) with peak demand hours in most regions.

Power usage at night si actually frustrating for everybody involved in energy generation because often the light loads end up being handled in very inefficient ways.

That's true. Solar, along with storage technologies, helps with this by flattening out the peaks and troughs in demand across the day. That means less need to start and stop gas peaker plants and less need to keep plants idling as spinning reserve, which can be expensive and wasteful.

Second; the amount of solar energy generated in this country is a tiny fraction of what is needed to power the country. That tiny contribution to the electrical grid comes with a massive waste of land space, often in areas with sensitive ecosystems.

Nonsense. The daily energy demand for the entire USA could be supplied by about 11 million acres of solar panels. That's equivalent to a small corner of Nevada, which has plenty of sunny empty desert available!

In fact, a small section of the Sahara desert could power the entire planet's energy demand.

Obviously we don't yet have the ability to store and transmit it efficiently/cheaply enough for 100% solar to be a reality, but the point is that the amount of potential energy available via solar is enormous.

Sure it does because stupid things like people thinking nuclear energy is dangerous can be addressed.

Nuclear energy is certainly less dangerous than highly polluting alternatives like coal, but it is very expensive. Nobody would be bothering much with solar, gas, or coal if nuclear was cheap and easy. Unfortunately it's not.