$ 848 million . That ’s the amount of cash Apple is spend on what Bloomberg calls “ the expectant commercial solar bargain EVER . ” That may seem like a crap ton of money to us , it ’s still less than a percent of the $ 178 billion in cash Apple — aka the55th richest land in the earthly concern — has on manus right now .
Even though some reports discover the business deal as Apple “ purchasing ” or “ building ” a solar farm , that ’s not exactly what ’s happen . In reality , Apple is investing $ 848 million in the 25 - year - old Arizona company First Solar , which is in the cognitive operation of building a huge ( 2,900 acre ! ) solar farm inMonterey County . In return , when the Monterey farm is up and running in 2016 , First Solar will be give Apple 130 megawatts of the output signal — enough to power “ all of Apple ’s California stores , offices , headquarters and a information center , ” saysBusinessweek .
It ’s a bright move , and though it ’s record - breaking , it ’s not unusual : A whole cadre of other mega - company are buying stakes in solar and idle words land projects in the US , from Ikea to Wal - Mart . More importantly , technical school party have been scramble to find more effective ways to power their ever - growing sprawl of data centers . As we reported last year , Facebook is swarm resources into findingbetter ways to establish these energy - hogs , includingbuying up jazz energyto cancel the toll .
Apple — which is search to inflate its swarm over the next few year — is clearly appear to do the same .
range : claudio zaccherini
Appledata centersEnergy
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