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SunPower agrees to build 170 megawatts of Chinese solar power for Apple

California's SunPower is planning to build three new Chinese solar farms for Apple with a peak capacity of 170 megawatts, the company said in a newly-submitted regulatory filing.

The farms are destined for China's Inner Mongolia region, and will be jointly owned by Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor and a third partner, Bloomberg reported. The project should be completed sometime in 2016.

A 100-megawatt farm is coming to Shangtuhai Village, while 50 megawatts will be based in Mandahtu Town Sunite Zuoqi. The remaining 20 will flow from Qianbaimiao Village.

The third investment partner wasn't identified in documents, but SunPower CEO Tom Werner said that Apple will be taking an equity stake.

SunPower has already agreed to build 40 megawatts of capacity in China's Sichuan province, part of a larger effort to offset the power consumption of Apple's operations and suppliers. Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to local air pollution and global climate change.



10 Comments

macky the macky 15 Years · 4801 comments

I wonder how long it will be before we hear of a horrific explosion when a local taps into one of the power conduits thinking they'll get free gasoline...

anantksundaram 18 Years · 20391 comments

[quote name="Macky the Macky" url="/t/190271/sunpower-agrees-to-build-170-megawatts-of-chinese-solar-power-for-apple#post_2808850"]I wonder how long it will be before we hear of a horrific explosion when a local taps into one of the power conduits thinking they'll get free gasoline... [/quote] :???:

peter236 17 Years · 254 comments

China itself has 33GW of solar power capacity.

mytdave 15 Years · 447 comments

"Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to local air pollution and global climate change."

 

Correction: "Much of the Chinese power grid is still dependent on coal, contributing to real, measurable, local environmental pollution of several kinds, because China lacks any sense of responsibility and doesn't use scrubbing equipment or "clean coal" burning technology like is done in the United States, although the coal burning does nothing to affect the global climate because "global climate change" (formerly "global warming") is a hoax perpetuated for political gain."

peter236 17 Years · 254 comments

The US lags behind China in terms of investments in clean power, like solar, wind and hydro power etc. China has the largest installed capacity of solar, wind and hydro power in the world. The US should take its own responsibility seriously by reducing its pollution levels.