Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Tuesday, Feb. 10, that the company is investing $850 million into a California solar farm.
“We know in Apple that climate change is real,” he said, according to Reuters. “The time for talk is passed. The time for action is now.”
The company is working with Tempe, Ariz.-based solar panel maker First Solar on the 2,900-acre California Flats Solar Project in Monterey County in Northern California. Construction on the farm is expected to commence in mid-2015, with completion set for the end of 2016, First Solar said in a statement. It is also expected to generate 500 jobs throughout the course of its construction.
The solar farm will produce enough energy for 60,000 homes and Apple’s future head office in Cupertino, Cook said at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco.
Apple will be the biggest user of energy generated from the farm. Its investment includes a 25-year lease on 130 megawatts of power, marking the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.
“We are doing this because it is right to do,” Cook told Forbes. “But it is also good financially.” He said Apple will save in the long run since it will obtain energy at a fixed rate.
Excess energy produced will be sold to utility Pacific Gas & Electric.
“Apple’s commitment was instrumental in making this project possible and will significantly increase the supply of solar power in California,” Joe Kishkill, chief commercial officer for First Solar, said in a statement.
Cook said most of its data centers are currently powered with renewable energy, and Greenpeace commended the Tuesday announcement.
“It’s one thing to talk about being 100 percent renewably powered, but it’s quite another thing to make good on that commitment with the incredible speed and integrity that Apple has shown in the past two years,” Gary Cook, Greenpeace senior IT sector analyst, said in a statement. “Apple still has work to do to reduce its environmental footprint, but other Fortune 500 CEOs would be well served to make a study of Tim Cook, whose actions show that he intends to take Apple full-speed ahead toward renewable energy with the urgency that our climate crisis demands.”
The farm will be located in the remote southeastern region of Cholame Valley, and was unanimously approved by Monterey County’s planning commission in January. It received some opposition from activists who said it would endanger protected species, such as the bald eagle, California red-legged frog and San Joaquin kit fox, among others.
(With reports from Forbes, Reuters, San Jose Mercury News and The San Luis Obispo Tribune)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend February 14-17, 2015 Sec. D pg.1)
