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Apple Creates Energy Company, Looks To Sell Excess Power Into The Grid (9to5mac.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: Apple has quietly created an energy subsidiary, 'Apple Energy' LLC, registered in Delaware but run from its Cupertino headquarters. The company has seemingly formed to allow it to sell excess electricity generated by its solar farms in Cupertino and Nevada, with plans to sell electricity across the whole of the U.S. But a set of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filings suggests that Apple could have bigger ambitions in the power field. Currently, when private companies sell their excess power, they can only do so to energy companies -- and they often (varies by state) have to sell at wholesale rates. What Apple seemingly could to do, however, is sell directly to end-users at market rates. In other words, get paid retail prices for its excess power. Currently companies like Green Mountain Power can sell green renewable energy to homeowners all over the U.S. It wouldn't be a stretch to see Apple do this as a product in the future. Apple has told the FERC that it meets the legal criteria for selling electricity at market rates because it is not a major player in the energy business and thus has no power to influence electricity prices. It has requested permission begin within 60 days of its filing on 6th June.
As time goes on, and "unibody aluminum" becomes commoditized, and eventually people are not interested in OSX or iPhones anymore; Apple, with plenty of cash reserves, starts investing more and more in power production, while over time, letting programmers go.
A hundred years from now, everyone thinks of Apple as the power company, and if they know at all, they think it's quaint that Apple started as a computer company, much like we think of Nintendo starting as a trading card company, or Nokia as a wood-pulp mill.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Let say a country produces 10% renewable energy. We could say that all clients get 10% of renewable energy, on average. What happens if one client pay more to get only renewable? He/she gets 100% (that is in theory, because in practice the flow of electrons remains the same), while the rest decrease from 10% to 9.999%. No more green energy is produced, or consumed.
Therefore it sounds like a scam to me. In the end it doesn't matter if YOUR energy is renewable or not. What counts is the overall. And that can only be achieved through government regulations.
> Therefore it sounds like a scam to me.
Either you're an idiot or you play one on TV.
I actually buy "green electricity" from a (carefully selected) provider. I don't give a hoot where the *electrons come from* (actually they don't travel very far, they just jitter a very short distance back and forth).
What I care about is where my *money goes to*: a company whose future investments will be renewables.
Of course, government involvement can do quite a bit as can be seen in what happened in Germany. These days, alas, they have been subverted by energy lobby groups.
So yes, call the governments out, do your thing as a citizen, but never forget: many "up there" are just mercenaries. Going to elections ain't enough, you have to vote with your wallet too. You gotta "vote" by any means available to you to make a difference.
A hundred years from now, everyone thinks of Apple as the power company, and if they know at all, they think it's quaint that Apple started as a computer company, much like we think of Nintendo starting as a trading card company, or Nokia as a wood-pulp mill.
Apple isn't becoming a power company. They are selling excess generating capacity. That's it. Nothing to see here. They are making a little extra cash off of an underutilized asset. Building a solar farm generates capacity in a step function. You can't scale it exactly to your need so you have to buy a bit extra. You can then sell this extra capacity very cheaply because it costs very little to operate. The expensive bit was buying it in the first place. For solar there aren't even any input costs, just a bit of administration and maintenance. So they'll add a tiny bit to the bottom line and do it with clean energy. Nothing super exciting.
Is that why a Republican President (along with Republican-dominated Congress) allowed the fuck-ups like Enron, MCI, and Lehman Brothers to collapse, while a Democratic one bailed out GM, Chrysler (not the first one), and AIG?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.