Apple plans to use Tesla's "Megapack" battery pack at a newly announced energy farm in California to help power Apple Park and further its commitment to renewable energy and being carbon-neutral by 2030, according to The Verge.
Apple's newly announced California solar farm will use 85 of Tesla's 60MV battery packs to help power Apple Park, according to the report. According to Apple, the new solar farm, initially spearheaded by the company in 2015, will store enough battery to power more than 7,000 homes.
Apple is constructing one of the largest battery projects in the country, California Flats — an industry-leading, grid-scale energy storage project capable of storing 240 megawatt-hours of energy, enough to power over 7,000 homes for one day. This project supports the company's 130-megawatt solar farm that provides all of its renewable energy in California, by storing excess energy generated during the day and deploying it when it is most needed.
The farm was approved by the local Monterey County Board of Supervisors last year, and the county's chief of planning confirmed to The Verge that Apple would use Tesla's "Megapack" battery at the new farm.
Apple will not, however, be using Tesla's most high-end Megapack offering. As noted by The Verge, Tesla has built 100MV battery storage solutions in Australia and Houston, Texas. Apple's VP of environment, Lisa Jackson, says the company hopes the new farm will remove hesitancy around companies switching to renewable and clean energy.
If we can do it, and we can show that it works for us, it takes away the concerns about intermittency and it helps the grid in terms of stabilization. It's something that can be imitated or built upon by other companies.
Apple and Tesla are yet to be direct competitors; however, that could change in the not-so-distant future as Apple further develops its self-driving car. Tesla CEO Elon Musk made headlines earlier last year when he revealed that he reached out to Tim Cook about Apple acquiring Tesla. According to Musk, however, Cook never accepted the meeting invitation.
