Apple hopes to sell excess solar power

And if Apple’s application to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) goes through, it will sell excess power from solar panels on top of its Cupertino facility as well as energy generated by its solar farms, hydroelectric plants and biogas facilities across the country. Most corporations usually sell surplus energy to power companies, but the tech titan is basically creating a green energy pipeline to consumers. What Apple seemingly could to do, however, is sell directly to end-users at market rates. “At that moment” is key because if Apple can not use the electricity onsite, immediately when produced, then the electricity has to be shipped onto the broader power grid, owned and operated by the utility companies, and Apple will pay fees for that. They plan to solar projects totaling 521 megawatts of power after March 2016, all but 162 megawatts of which will be wholly owned by Apple. Having a classification of a utility will give Apple stronger abilities to have access to the local power grid at consistent and lower prices regular consumers can not. Currently, Apple has solar farms in Cupertino and Nevada, and is working to add more.

Apple is seeking to sell a whole different product.

According to some more digging on the part of the media (this time 9to5Mac spotted it), Apple can legally sell energy at market rates since it isn’t a large energy company and won’t impact the price of electricity. In the meantime, selling off the excess helps recoup costs by selling to power companies at wholesale rates, which then gets sold onward to end customers. So, selling off the excess clean energy to other power companies or directly to consumers seems like a logical and a very profitable step.

“In the past five years, we have reduced the carbon footprint of Apple facilities by 64 percent thanks to our clean energy use, avoiding over 1 million metric tons of carbon emissions”, said Apple in its latest environmental responsibility report.