Gigaom’s Katie Fehrenbacher takes an extensive look at the solar farms and fuel cells powering Apple’s North Carolina data center. The gist is that Apple has gone through tremendous lengths to actually build out its own clean power sources, something that other clean power IT leaders like Facebook and Google have thus far been reluctant to do. One strain of thought says that developing clean power is not a core competency of these companies. Moreover, if you’re Google and you carefully select data center locations where you can buy renewable energy off the grid, then you’ve accomplished the goal.

I wonder if what happened in North Carolina was that Apple went there for cheap power and solid broadband infrastructure. Then public opinion and pressure mounted for all well funded IT leaders to take a responsible approach to energy sourcing. At this point Apple had a problem, because as Fehrenbacher’s report points out, Duke Energy had no real interest in building out clean energy sources, not to mention intrinsic regulatory hurdles that it would have had to overcome to generate clean power. So Apple really had to build its own clean power.

Duke Energy is now pushing forward in developing its own clean power, which is great news and an acknowledgement that being able to offer clean power is key to attracting data center business. Will other companies like Microsoft or Google actually build their own clean power projects? It’s not unthinkable. Large Indian conglomerates are notorious for building their own power sources and Apple has shown it’s possible. But if clean power can be accessed easily and if utilities are getting the message, it might be possible just to keep targeting locations with abundant renewable energy.