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wiredInUSA - March 2015
wiredInUSA - March 2015
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Green to the core?
Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has committed to invest $848 million in a solar
photovoltaic plant to power themajority of the company's offices and
retail stores in California.
The plant will be built on a 1,300 acre site in Monterey County, and will
generate enough energy to supply Apple’s Cupertino headquarters,
its data center in Newark, all Apple offices and 52 stores.
Cook told investors: ”We are doing this because it's right to do, but
you may also be interested to know that it’s good financially to do
it. We expect to have very significant savings, because we have a
fixed price for the renewable energy, and there’s quite a difference
between that price and the price of brown energy.”
Apple’s price is fixed for 25 years. Construction is expected to begin in
mid-2015, and should be finished by the end of 2016.
The project is part of the California Flats project on Hearst’s 73,000
acre Jack Ranch, and will become one of the largest ever built for a
commercial user. It will add 130MW of new solar power to California,
enough to power about 50,000 California homes.
Apple has invested heavily in renewable energy, most notably to run
the data centers that power iCloud, iTunes and other Internet-based
services. Elsewhere, Apple’s Oregon facilities are powered by a
hydroelectric plant and wind energy; its California data center uses
wind energy; and its Nevada facility relies on solar and geothermal
energy.