Apple establishes 'Apple Energy' to resell green energy back to providers
Apple has established a new subsidiary firm, "Apple Energy LLC," geared towards reselling surplus energy from the company's solar farms back to local grid systems.
The business was formally incorporated in Delaware on May 20, even though its point of contact is Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headuqarters, according to an LLC filing discovered by 9to5Mac. The company's assets include power facilities in Nevada and California, among them the solar panels and fuel cells that will support its Campus 2 complex in Cupertino, which is due to be occupied by early 2017.
Apple has meanwhile told the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission it should meet the criteria for selling power at market rates rather than wholesale, since it doesn't have major influence in the energy industry and can't impact prices. Should it get permission, it could start reselling power within 60 days of June 6.
Many U.S. states offer "net metering" to individual citizens, allowing them to make money from reselling their excess solar power. Apple may need a subsidiary to resell energy due to the greater scale and complexity involved.
The company is unlikely to start selling to consumers, since that would involve establishing expensive new infrastructure to reach homes, among other obstacles. Instead, reselling to local power companies may offset the cost of drawing on the grid when solar energy isn't enough.
The business was formally incorporated in Delaware on May 20, even though its point of contact is Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headuqarters, according to an LLC filing discovered by 9to5Mac. The company's assets include power facilities in Nevada and California, among them the solar panels and fuel cells that will support its Campus 2 complex in Cupertino, which is due to be occupied by early 2017.
Apple has meanwhile told the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission it should meet the criteria for selling power at market rates rather than wholesale, since it doesn't have major influence in the energy industry and can't impact prices. Should it get permission, it could start reselling power within 60 days of June 6.
Many U.S. states offer "net metering" to individual citizens, allowing them to make money from reselling their excess solar power. Apple may need a subsidiary to resell energy due to the greater scale and complexity involved.
The company is unlikely to start selling to consumers, since that would involve establishing expensive new infrastructure to reach homes, among other obstacles. Instead, reselling to local power companies may offset the cost of drawing on the grid when solar energy isn't enough.
Comments
THIS IS HUUUGE!!!
To-date, Apple's investments in renewable energies have focused on internal & environmental benefits. With this news, plus the possibility of Apple Car In a few years, Apple may now be pivoting toward making these revenue-generating offerings.
Net metering is really the easiest way to sell power back to the grid. Solar only works during the daytime, data centers need power 24/7 and solar is not really a predictable source of power due to variable weather conditions. Net metering means you basically run the meter backwards in the daytime and forwards at night so you are selling it back to the utility at the same rate or higher than they sell it to you since power is more expensive during the day. If you are producing more power during the day than you are consuming it automatically gets deducted from your utility bill. One down side is that if there is a power outage on the grid, you can't send your excess power to the grid, and you can't use it yourself either, well at least not easily. If there is a grid power outage you pretty much have to use back up generators of some sort, usually diesel.
Another common technique that is used when there is not enough land near your facility to install a solar farm, is you build it somewhere else where land is cheap and sell to the utility and then just pick it back up off the grid at your facility, but you don't get market price for it with that method. You have to sell back at wholesale prices.
Expected intellectually dishonest response from our resident Samsung shill. If you weren't such a troll, you'd realize there's a different between manufacturing solar cells, and actually setting up massive solar farms in order to power your company's operations. But why would that matter to you? Your MO is muddying the waters enough to get out some sarcastic quip that shits on Apple, bending the truth as much as you can to do so. It got old a long time ago.
Any idea how much money would be generated by reselling?
There is a world of difference between the two, but you are too blind to discern it.
Quick question - what powers Apple's operations after the sun goes down? Without practical energy storage technology, all intermittent renewables are an eco-con done for the sake of green-cred. Behind every solar/wind farm is a conventional power plant propping it up and making it look good while ironically being cursed by eco-fools. The only renewable that really works is the good old original - hydro. Geo-thermal is pretty cool too.
I never said anything about who deserves more credit for what, I pointed out the obvious fact that they're two different concepts entirely, something you were trying to hide with your ridiculous "Samsung did it first" comparison.
Your rant is irrelevant, and your reading comprehension is complete garbage. Also, I have zero interest in your opinion about renewable energy, I didn't ask for it, nor do I put a shred of value on it. Yet another example of a post where you obtusely compare unrelated things in order to shit on Apple, then go into completely different tangents that you understand even less about. For once, would be nice if you actually made an honest effort to understand the concepts, instead of trying to "win" all the time.
plus other projects involving building renewable power sites.
Samsung's basic materials R&D and production of the solar panels was done in search of the all mighty dollar. The decision Samsung had to make was to produce panels and earn in the solar market or not be in the solar market. If there was a market for a panel that actively harmed the environment Samsung would be front and center selling that to. Though I have not researched this, it is a safe bet that these panels were not produced from a factory that was powered by solar or renewable energy. If Samsung decided years ago to move all of their power needs to solar or renewable, then they would on par with Apple ... but as I previously mentioned that would be less profitable for them as is cheaper to use dirty power. I wonder why it is that the only thing that they have not tried to copy from Apple are it's environmental initiatives.
I've followed your comments for a long time, you are basically a shill masquerading as a troll. I try to keep an open mind, but if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... than it probably is one.
No, he was commenting on your falsely equating Samsung's making and selling solar panels with Apple's selling their excess generated power back to the grid.
One's not necessarily better than the other; they're different. Apple's not copying Samsung, they're doing something completely different. Samsung's not copying Apple here, they're doing something completely different.
Agreed, although solar and wind are great alternatives at this point in time they are only a stop gap measure. Thorium, specifically LFTR technology, is the future of endless cheap energy and cleaning up the other old tech produced nuclear waste as well, while producing medical isotopes and interplanetary fuels as byproducts, and rare earth metals in the mining process.