iCloud is now completely solar

Solar farm

Apple’s data farm – which powers the company’s cloud-computing efforts – is completely solar. That’s the word from the iPhone maker, which Thursday released its annual Environmental Progress report. The progress comes only a year after Apple received a failing grade by Greenpeace International, whose members charged the iPhone maker used coal to power its cloud.

Apple also announced 75 percent of power to its worldwide corporate offices come from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal. That is more than double the sustainable energy of two years ago, when the company announced 35 percent of power in its corporate suites was renewable…

Although Apple CEO Tim Cook first announced the 100 percent solar milestone during a January Town Hall meeting, today’s updated environmental program provides more details. As for Apple’s corporate facilities, they are now running globally on 75 percent of renewable energy, more than a twofold increase from just 35 percent two years ago.

Our goal is to power every facility at Apple entirely with energy from renewable sources — solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal.

So we’re investing in our own onsite energy production, establishing relationships with suppliers to procure renewable energy off the grid, and reducing our energy needs even as our employee base grows.

The announcement, released in Apple’s annual Environmental Progress report published today, means Apple has surpassed its goal of providing 60 percent renewable energy to power air-conditioning for its countless computer servers.

Apple’s data centers are now all 100 percent solar, the company confirms:

Our investments are paying off.

We’ve already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino.

And for all of Apple’s corporate facilities worldwide, we’re at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases.

We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.

Many of those servers – which deliver data for iTunes and other cloud-based services – were the target of Greenpeace’s report last year entitled “How Clean is Your Cloud?”

Apple also released a new video, seen below, that highlights its solar array at Maiden’s iCloud facility.

Apple’s 100-acre solar farm near the company’s huge data center in North Carolina came fully online in December.

The solar installation also includes a number of fuel cells which convert biogas into energy. A new data center the firm is building in Prineville, Oregon will also be powered by renewable energy sources, according to Apple.