Apple wins regulatory approval to begin selling excess energy from its solar farms

Following the discovery in June that Apple set up an energy subsidiary, ‘Apple Energy’ LLC, with plans to sell off its excess renewable energy, SiliconBeat reports that the company today received approval to begin doing so.

The approval from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission means Apple will be able to start selling excess energy generated from its solar farms and other renewable energy facilities it has located in Nevada, Arizona, and California:

Federal energy regulators on Thursday approved Apple’s application to start selling solar power at market rates… The tech company owns generation capacity of 20 megawatts in Nevada, 50 megawatts in Arizona and 130 megawatts in California. The latter output – enough to power tens of thousands of homes – will come from Apple’s $850 million partnership with sun-farm firm First Solar, at the California Flats solar project in southeast Monterey County.

The company, however, is still waiting on approval to sell excess electricity it plans to generate from new installations at its currently under constructions Campus 2 in Cupertino. The 176-acre campus, expected to become the company’s headquarters early next year, will run on 100% renewable energy generated in large part from on-site photovoltaics and fuel cells. The on-site photovoltaics alone are rated at 14 megawatts.

Following the discovery of Apple’s energy subsidiary in June, the company also received the go ahead to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina.

You can read more on our original look into Apple’s new energy company over on our sister site Electrek.