Helping all companies achieve 100 percent renewable energy use by creating flexible, scalable, and global solutions with easy-to-transact contracts, variable tenors, and risk exposures commercial and industrial companies can understand and manage.

Apple led the world in innovative solutions for renewable energy development by a commercial, non-energy company, and I was a central part of the team leading that effort.First we developed a strategy to guide how we develop and contract for renewable energy, initially for the United States and then globally, because different states and countries have different regulatory structures, each requiring a customized approach. Here’s that strategy.(i) Energy EfficiencyAlways start here! It has fast payback and low capital requirement. Optimized building controls, variable speed motors, static pressure resets, more and more sensors: it’s not photogenic and doesn’t grab headlines, but if you’re not continuously doing this, then you’re losing money. I worked on this in the early years, then handed it off to more talented teammates.(ii) Apple-created Renewable ProjectsThis is the heart of the strategy: creating new projects located in the same state and utility service area as Apple’s data centers and corporate campuses, or in the same regional grid as retail stores and other small energy use facilities—more on this below.(iii) Purchase from Existing ProjectsIf more renewables are needed, especially while the Apple-created projects are being built, then we’ll procure it from nearby projects using customized contracts, utility green programs, or REC purchases.With this strategy in hand, we contracted for new projects using innovative structures, including project ownership, equity investments, negotiated offtake agreements, new utility partnerships, as well as PPAs. Apple has 25 operational projects totaling 626 megawatts of generation capacity—and 15 more projects in construction. Once built, Apple will have 1.4 gigawatts of renewable generation spread across 11 countries.Below are highlights and innovations during Apple’s march to 100 percent renewable energy use. I was directly involved with these workflows in the early years, and lead them in recent years.

2011 — Project OwnershipA new era in corporate renewable energy began when Apple announced its 20-megawatt Maiden solar PV project. This was the first time a non-energy commercial company built its own utility-scale project. We used a 1978 federal law called the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) to structure the project. This, combined with falling panel prices and other incentives, created a positive return on investment—it was a landmark moment. We followed it up with two more large solar projects and two biogas fuel cell projects also in North Carolina and two micro-hydro projects in Oregon, all using the same structure.The beauty of PURPA is it ensures fixed cash flow for the project based on the utility’s avoided rate. This reduces project risk by removing exposure to variable settlement pricing.After we did this, PURPA use in North Carolina dramatically increased.2012 — Direct AccessIn California and Oregon, Apple uses Direct Access to say no to the default electricity supply offered by the utilities and instead got the right to contract directly with independent power producers for its electricity supply. We did this to get 100 percent renewable energy because the utilities had no green option. Initially, we bought from existing, third-party owned projects, but now Apple uses its own Apple-created projects to supply renewables to itself: Solar Star II for the Prineville data center and the California Flats solar project for the Newark data center.Direct Access is a great way to access renewables in regulated electricity markets.We also use Direct Access and the California Flats project to supplement on-site renewables at Apple Park (our headquarters in Cupertino) and for other offices and retail stores across California.

2013 — Green RiderApple opened a new data center in Reno, Nevada, but there was no viable option for PURPA or Direct Access, so we decided to work with NV Energy, the local utility, and together we created a whole new regulatory structure—called the Nevada Green Rider—that does everything we want from a renewable energy partnership with a utility: we get a long-term contract at a fixed price from a new solar PV project built just for us; the utility balances the project’s generation to match the energy use at the data center, and they manage the settlement risk exposure to wholesale market price uncertainty; and there's no impact on the rate base.Furthermore, we don’t commit capital or staff time building projects, rather we just pay a small premium on the monthly invoice. We used the Nevada Green Rider four times for a total of 320 megawatts: two projects are operational and two are in construction.I would do this everywhere in the world if I could; sadly, it’s only available in Nevada.2014 — Joint Venture Equity Investments Apple began its Lan Tian (蓝天) initiative, meaning “blue sky,” to develop two 20-megawatt solar PV projects in Sichuan, China to support its retail stores, corporate offices, and leased data facilities. Nothing like this had been done before, but by the end of 2015, we had found the right partners, made an equity investment, and innovated our way to a 100 percent renewable energy program in China.The blue skies of Sichuan’s elevated plateau lend themselves to the use of concentrating (curved mirror) solar panels, which helped keep costs down.Apple replicated this structure to build an additional 480 megawatts of wind and solar for its supply chain program.Equity is often the safer side of a renewable project to be on when you’re a corporate buyer.

2015 — Distributed Portfolio - PPASingapore is so densely populated that there’s no space on the ground for a large-scale solar project. So we designed an entirely new solution. Apple partnered with local renewable energy provider Sunseap to develop a distributed rooftop solar PV portfolio totaling 32 megawatts spread across over 800 apartment building rooftops. We signed a long-term PPA-like agreement and used Singapore’s version of Direct Access (called the Contestable Load option) to have Sunseap deliver the solar power directly to Apple’s Singapore facilities. Apple is the first major corporate energy user to buy 100 percent renewable energy in Singapore.Additionally, we worked with the Center for Resource Solutions to bring the Green-e Energy certification to Singapore, the first county outside North America to have it; and we worked with APX to create the first robust Asian renewable energy tracking system (see “Projects” below for more details).This first-of-its-kind solution of Apple's is catching on: Microsoft recently announced they copied this strategy for their Singapore energy needs.2016 — Distributed Portfolio - Equity InvestmentJapan is land-constrained and it has a challenging regulatory framework. Nonetheless, we found an economical way to solve this problem by once again looking up: we made an equity investment in a portfolio of over 300 solar PV rooftop systems on buildings connected to the grid that use a low-voltage tariff. Enough renewable power is generated to fully match Apple’s corporate and retail store energy use.This is a replicable solution. Working with our local partner, we followed up with a second equity investment portfolio that supports Apple’s supply chain program.Asian energy markets are challenging for sourcing new renewable generation, but innovative structures and policy reform advocacy is the compass to guide you through this maze.

2017 — Fixed Price Contract in Emerging MarketsElsewhere in the world, we contracted for small amounts of new renewables in several markets for the first time—including India, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and Israel—with fixed-price contracts. As global operations grow, the hard part is finding projects small enough to match with limited energy use in each market. These types of contracts solve this problem by allowing corporate buyers to have fractional participation in large projects and also lowers costs from economies of scale.2018 — Corporate AggregationThe most compelling innovation in recent years is what we did with two projects in the mid-Atlantic region totaling 260 megawatts of generation: an Illinois wind farm and a Virginia solar PV project. Previously, when Apple found new ways to source renewables, we’d share those details publicly in hopes others would follow the example, and many did. But now, with these projects, Apple took its leadership role to the next level. Apple didn’t just set an example; instead, here we directly assisted other companies in accessing the same high-quality renewables Apple’s getting. We used Apple’s energy experience and market leverage to open the door to allow three other companies—Akamai, Etsy, and Swiss Re—to buy energy from these projects at the same commercial terms we negotiated. These companies, with modest energy use in the region, have limited opportunity to access low pricing achievable through PPAs with large projects. But by partnering with Apple, they were able to do this. Aggregation of demand, like this, opens the market to medium- and small-sized corporate buyers. By increasing market demand, collaborations like this accelerate the pace at which new renewable generation is built and brought online. By joining together, companies large and small can have a meaningful impact on reducing the rate of climate change.In 2019, Apple replicated this with a Texas project shared with eBay, Sprint and Samsung.

To summarize, here are the project structures I’ve worked on over the last eight years:• Ownership (capital deployment)• PURPA• Direct Access• Utility Green Riders• Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)• Customized Partnerships• Portfolio Approaches• Equity Investment• Joint Ventures• AggregationWe used these structures to build new projects located in the same utility service area and state where Apple has large energy loads, like data centers. Additionally, we found a way to schedule delivery of the renewable energy to the loads by a regulatory program (such as Direct Access or a utility green rider) or by contractual arrangement (customized partnerships).And here are the strategic objectives behind the use of these structures:• minimize exposure to settlement risk,• replicability to keep pace with growing energy needs,• future-proof renewable claims against evolving national energy policies, and• easy-to-transact solutions to increase broad C&I sector adoptability.These are the things I worked on during my time with Apple. We were the first non-energy company to do many of these at scale.