A green Apple is making the most of Singapore’s abundant sunshine supply

Singapore, the site of one of Apple’s largest overseas campuses, is small and densely populated, leaving little room for large, ground-mounted solar arrays.

The store, as well as the rest of Apple’s operations in Singapore will run on renewable energy, including solar energy from systems built atop more than 800 buildings in the city-state – making it the first company in Singapore to be powered exclusively by clean fuel.

Under the agreement, Sunseap supplies power at a preferential rate compared with retail electricity tariffs.

The rooftop solar panels will be placed on both public-owned buildings and Apple’s own facilities, generating 50 MW of solar energy, enough to power the equivalent of 9,000 homes, according to Apple.

Apple has recently confirmed that it will soon be opening its first retail store in Singapore, its first in the Southeast Asian region. Apple was also reportedly busy hiring employees for its store.

Apple has not confirmed the location or the opening date of the Apple Store yet. The upcoming retail store will probably see Apple placing a bigger focus on the Singapore market, which now also functions as a shopping hub for more committed fanbase in the area, who regularly go down to the island-state during product launches to get their hands on Apple devices like the iPhone 6 Plus.

Ripples of an impending official announcement started in late October, when a popular gym informed members it would close its four-story Knightsbridge mall outlet in Orchard Road – Singapore’s prime shopping district – on December 15. The company has also posted * a href=”https://jobs.apple.com/sg/search?jobType=2#&t=2&sb=req_open_dt&so=1&lo=0*SGP&pN=0&openJobId=SGGN” target=”_blank” data-component=”externalLink” *job listings for Apple Geniuses and other retail positions.