Apple Invests A Billion Dollars In Solar Energy Enough To Power All Apple's CA Holdings

Serpa Solar Park in Portugal, built in 2006, will be dwarfed by Apple's solar farm.

Bloomberg Business is reporting:

Now Cook is putting his prodigious sums of money where his mouth is, proclaiming the “biggest, boldest and most ambitious project ever,” an $850 million agreement to buy solar power from First Solar, the biggest U.S. developer of solar farms. The deal will supply enough electricity to power all of Apple’s California stores, offices, headquarters and a data center, Cook said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco.

It’s the biggest-ever solar procurement deal for a company that isn't a utility, and it nearly triples Apple’s stake in solar, according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). “The investment amount is enormous,” said Michel Di Capua, head of North American research at BNEF. “This is a really big deal.”

This is not some whimsical move in the hopes of promoting solar. It's a smart business move. Apple invests in First Solar, in return they get 130 megawatts—enough to power all of their retail facilities and their HQ. Bloomberg points out that the project is set to be completed:

End of 2016 (in time to take advantage of a 30 percent U.S. tax credit)

The gamble here is that Apple is investing in the sun while many tech companies have invested in cheaper wind power.