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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.
Generating the power is one thing. Getting that power to the consumer is a different kettle of eels (electric of course). Those big asses power lines didn't put themselves up or maintain themselves. The grid's owners are going to want enough of a cut of the sales to probably make the project unprofitable, for the near future. I'm not telling Apple anything they don't already know but remember Enron. This was their business plan.
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."
Did you hook up a generator to her mouth?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Electricity is fungible. It makes no odds which electrons you get, so long as the renewable energy company puts in the same at the other end. That is of course instantaneously impossible. But averaged over a period of time it's not. The more customers green electricity companies get, the more renewable power generators they build.
Apple's self-driving electric vehicle will need charging stations across the 50 states.
Expect them to partner with a roadside diner chain. charge car battery, get a bite to eat while a Genius services your iPad...
I kind of get the solar/wind power buyers who pay more. There are a smattering of people for whom paying extra for "renewable" power has some religious meaning even though the actual power they use may be from non-renewable sources. Fine. We salute your noble personal sacrifice for the cause of sustaining renewable energy.
What I completely don't get is why someone would be an *Apple" renewable power buyer. I see renewable as the basic "brand" here and don't understand why anyone would specify Apple power. Even device fandom doesn't explain it to me.
This looks mostly like a set of corporate constructs to lessen the regulatory burden and increase Apple's flexibility to both sell its excess power and maximize whatever financial advantages it has in terms of tax structure.
It seems to me like one of the weird side effects of massive profitability and lack of investment in product diversity or expansion is that some companies seem to be drifting into almost financial company status, where the business imperative shifts to structural tactics to expand profitability versus expanding the existing core business.
GE kind of did this a decade or so ago, where its finance unit became so important to the business that some people thought the company should be evaluated as a financial company not a manufacturer.
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.
You just can't appreciate the quality design. Some of us are willing to pay for the superior experience that comes from using Apple energy. Honestly, once you try it, you can't go back to using anything else. Even the so-called high-end electrons from other companies feel cheep and unpolished. Yeah, the specs may seem better on paper, but the brilliantly crafted combination of current and voltage you get from Apple just can't be matched. It's all about the experience.
Required reading for internet skeptics
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> 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.
Maths fail.
You are assuming that the total amount of renewable energy stays 10%. It doesn't. When one customer goes 100% renewable, the extra money they pay (not a lot in my case) goes to building additional renewable capacity, and favouring it when buying power. Demand for non-renewable energy falls.
So the percentage of renewable energy does increase, rather than simply transferring some from one customer to another. It also demonstrates increased demand, which attracts investors, so the effect is amplified.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
I would imagine the reason is so they can buy from themselves at locations where solar isn't viable for retail and remote offices. There might be a smattering of other reasons, but their own non-renewable energy consumption in the US is likely the primary driver. But, once you go that far, why not take advantage of the opportunity to sell to others?
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.