Apple now Runs on Completely Renewable Energy

• Apple is now 100% powered by clean energy.
• The company currently requires RECs for 34% of its current clean energy status.
• They are planning to start over 15 more projects that will generate 1.4 gigawatts combined, which should make the tech giant a self-sufficient clean energy provider.

Apple has been one of the pioneering tech giants who wanted to power their companies solely via clean energy sources, and now it seems they have realized their dream. According to their latest reports, Apple is now 100% powered by renewable energy; this figure was around 96% back in 2016.

As per their statement, the company provides renewable energy to all their stores, offices, data centers and all co-located sites in over 43 countries. This also includes the new Cupertino “spaceship” Campus, which is totally rigged to clean energy sources. The company has also cited receiving commitments from 23 of their partners like Pegatron and Quanta Computers for manufacturing Apple products by using renewable energy.

Now one may question how they are getting clean energy to far off countries (or any place for that matter), where there is no renewable energy source in close vicinity? Well, in those cases the company does use regular energy solutions generated from fossil fuel, but in return, they are putting proportional renewables back into the grid.

An Apple representative has stated that the company currently relies on RECs (renewable energy certificates) for 34% of its usage, and the rest coming from the company’s own projects. However, Apple plans to fully cover its energy needs through their projects.

Image Courtesy of Phys.org

The company was around 25 renewable energy projects currently running across the globe, which generates a total 626 megawatts. They are also planning to introduce 15 more such projects which will provide a total of 1.4 gigawatts of clean energy. These projects will include the likes of solar arrays, wind farms, biogas fuel cells and even micro-hydro systems.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO has stated, “We're committed to leaving the world better than we found it. After years of hard work we're proud to have reached this significant milestone, […] we're going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.”