Apple in the energy business: iEnergy for your home?
After popular products like iPhone, iMac and the like comes now iEnergy. Apple goes into energy business with its own solar power subsidiary Apple Energy LLC. Why? To sell the surplus electricity of their power plants.
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Apple now wants to conquer the energy wholesale markets of the USA with their superfluous energy from their solar power plants. The plant in Cupertino alone achieves an output of 14 megawatts. Therefore, Apple wants to expand its solar projects on a global scale and aims at a total output of 521 megawatts.
Apple has long been using green energy for its own data centers, offices and stores. The company also invested in hydropower and geothermal energy projects, as well as in biogas.
This way, Apple is said to cover about 93 percent of its own global energy needs. But for a complete and sustained power supply through alternative energy, Apple must continue to invest in such energy projects. The company can cover the costs of this by selling their excess energy.
With Apple Energy LLC, the company creates lots of opportunities to focus on the energy business.
Up to now, companies have only been able to sell their remaining energy to energy companies at wholesale prices. However, Apple wants to sell its electricity in the retail trade, which means selling it directly to the end user.
If Apple gets the license, this will be another Apple product that is available in the states. Although Apple does not need this source of revenue, however, other providers see a serious competition.
It is also speculated that Apple wants to supply Apple cars with their own energy. The cars are another, current project in the company. Consumers are increasingly enthusiastic about sustainable means of transport.
To cope with the growing trend, Apple is researching on driverless electric cars. This increases the company’s interest in recharging stations. These could be powered by Apple’s own energy sources.
[plista]
