Hope they have a big battery back-up. Hmmm...maybe a big emergency diesel too.
Apple is doing energy independence at all of their installations and even making a profit doing it. They sell power back into the grid. Apple did it in North Carolina and they are planning to be completely independent at their new headquarters ring in Cupertino and sell power back. So far, as I understand it, they've made more than the cost of installations by the savings they've made when the cost of energy plus the income from energy sales are added together. They may be including the Federal and State Tax Credits into that, but I don't know whether that was included in their calculations of savings. They do anticipate continued future savings.
In 2012, Apple expended around $350 million for installing solar at the North Carolina Server Farm and other Apple installations around the country.
I would think this Arizona plant might be a tad more efficient than other installations they have in Oregon and Washington.
They have a massive data center in North Carolina that is solar. This is not new for them: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/08/inside-the-huge-solar-farm-that-powers-apples-icloud/375564/
No data center manager worth his salt would be caught dead without good failover plans.
It’s a good way to not be a data center manager anymore.