Apple Inc, which is spending US$850 million on a 130-megawatt (MW) solar farm near San Francisco over 25 years, can begin selling power into wholesale markets in the latest foray by a technology company into the energy business.
Apple’s subsidiary Apple Energy LLC may sell energy, capacity and other services needed to maintain reliable power, according to an order by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday.
In granting approval, the commission determined the company did not raise the risk of being able to unfairly hike up power prices.
The iPhone maker is among a group of companies investing in energy projects in a bid to tackle global warming and cut electric bills.
Google, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc are backing wind turbines and solar farms to power their operations and lower their carbon footprint.
“When you own power production facilities then you would typically want to have authority to sell power,” Kit Konolige, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, said by telephone on Thursday. “It is indicative of a number of related trends that are lowering demand for power produced by utilities.”
Apple last year entered into an agreement with First Solar Inc to buy power from the California solar farm in what was at the time the largest-ever solar procurement for a company that is not a utility, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Apple also owns 20MW of generation in the Nevada Power Co service area and 50MW in the Salt River Project service area in Arizona, according to the commission’s order.
All of Apple’s data centers are now powered by renewable energy.
Google, the biggest corporate buyer of clean energy in the US, in June announced it agreed to purchase energy from wind farms under development in Norway and Sweden to power its data centers in Europe. The company has a goal of running all operations on clean energy.
Apple was authorized to begin wholesale power sales on Saturday.
Google gained similar rights in 2010.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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