SunPower agrees to build 170 megawatts of Chinese solar power for Apple

Posted:
in General Discussion edited November 2015
California's SunPower is planning to build three new Chinese solar farms for Apple with a peak capacity of 170 megawatts, the company said in a newly-submitted regulatory filing.




The farms are destined for China's Inner Mongolia region, and will be jointly owned by Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor and a third partner, Bloomberg reported. The project should be completed sometime in 2016.

A 100-megawatt farm is coming to Shangtuhai Village, while 50 megawatts will be based in Mandahtu Town Sunite Zuoqi. The remaining 20 will flow from Qianbaimiao Village.

The third investment partner wasn't identified in documents, but SunPower CEO Tom Werner said that Apple will be taking an equity stake.

SunPower has already agreed to build 40 megawatts of capacity in China's Sichuan province, part of a larger effort to offset the power consumption of Apple's operations and suppliers. Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to local air pollution and global climate change.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10

    I wonder how long it will be before we hear of a horrific explosion when a local taps into one of the power conduits thinking they'll get free gasoline...

  • Reply 2 of 10
    I wonder how long it will be before we hear of a horrific explosion when a local taps into one of the power conduits thinking they'll get free gasoline...

    :???:
  • Reply 3 of 10

    China itself has 33GW of solar power capacity.

  • Reply 4 of 10

    "Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to local air pollution and global climate change."

     

    Correction: "Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to real, measurable, local environmental pollution of several kinds, because China lacks any sense of responsibility and doesn't use scrubbing equipment or "clean coal" burning technology like is done in the United States, although the coal burning does nothing to affect the global climate because "global climate change" (formerly "global warming") is a hoax perpetuated for political gain."

  • Reply 5 of 10
    The US lags behind China in terms of investments in clean power, like solar, wind and hydro power etc. China has the largest installed capacity of solar, wind and hydro power in the world. The US should take its own responsibility seriously by reducing its pollution levels.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by peter236 View Post



    The US lags behind China in terms of investments in clean power, like solar, wind and hydro power etc. China has the largest installed capacity of solar, wind and hydro power in the world. The US should take its own responsibility seriously by reducing its pollution levels.



    The US also lags behind China's massive toxic landfills leeching poisons into their environment. Their air is horrendous, their water is poisoned, their food is nothing to write home about. Believe me, you've got it good if you don't live there.

  • Reply 7 of 10
    Originally Posted by peter236 View Post

    The US should take its own responsibility seriously by reducing its pollution levels.



    Oh, COME ON. That’s LITERALLY the ONLY thing we’ve been doing, to the universal detriment of our industry and economy. And what does China do?

    NOTHING. And this is just a chart of the PLANT FOOD. Imagine what else they throw into the atmosphere, water, and soil! Go petition for THEM to be cut off. See what happens to you.

     

    I’m not in favor of increasing our actual pollution, but I’m also not in favor of destroying our economy and letting people whine about how “little” we’re doing all the while.

  • Reply 8 of 10
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

     



    The US also lags behind China's massive toxic landfills leeching poisons into their environment. Their air is horrendous, their water is poisoned, their food is nothing to write home about. Believe me, you've got it good if you don't live there.




    The US should not be shifting blame here. Just look at the number of cars on US roads. Traffic efficiency in the US is horrendous. The US is the largest polluter of all toxins and chemicals for decades. Now China has over 4 times the population of the US, and people start to nitpick on China.

  • Reply 9 of 10
    Originally Posted by peter236 View Post

    Now China has over 4 times the population of the US, and people start to nitpick on China.

     

    Almost as though they have zero regulations and regularly poison and kill their population with pollutants of all kinds... while the US doesn’t.

     

    Huh. How about that.

  • Reply 10 of 10
    mactacmactac Posts: 318member

    If the mining and refining of the rare earth minerals needed for wind turbines and solar panels were taking place in the US, the same people praising 'green' alternative power would be protesting to shut the mining and refining down.

    But since it is out of sight it is out of mind.

    Meanwhile the land and water in China is getting polluted and the workers poisoned making these wonderful 'green' devices.

     

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

     

    http://asiancorrespondent.com/2011/09/the-hidden-pollution-caused-by-solar-panels/

     

    http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/

     

    http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think

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