Much like other Silicon Valley giants, Apple is serious toward cutting its reliance on non-renewable energy sources — and this week, it took a major step on this front.
The Cupertino company has invested (PDF; non-English language) in four Chinese companies owned by Beijing Tianrun New Energy Investment, a subsidiary of Goldwind.
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Goldwind is China’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer, having supplied 12.5 percent of all wind turbine installations in the country last year. Much of Apple’s products are manufactured in China. In September, Apple had committed to use more renewable energy at its third-party suppliers.
This is Apple’s largest clean energy effort to date, and also its first foray into wind power, according to Lisa Jackson, VP of Environment, Policy and Social at Apple. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
The investments in wind turbines will collectively yield 285MW of clean energy, and the power generated will be directed towards Apple’s supply chain manufacturers, the company was quoted as saying.
The subsidiaries are based in northwest of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Apple now assumes 30 percent of equity in these four subsidiaries.
The announcement further concretes Apple’s intention of reducing carbon footprint, something that nearly every Silicon Valley company has been working on. Google, for instance, announced this week that by next year all of its energy needs will be met by renewable sources.
Apple isn’t there yet, but the company has been increasingly putting efforts on this front. Last year, the company had announced a joint venture with California-based SunPower to build two solar projects.
The company's new campus is also a proof of that. Called the Campus 2, the main building has solar panels on the roof of the main building.
CREDIT ; MASHABLE