Apple's New California Solar Farm Will Turn Their Stores, Campus Green

In an attempt to go completely green with their operations in California, Apple is building a solar farm in Monterrey County. The $850 million project will span 1,300 acres, and feed enough power to the grid to offset everything Apple does in California. Their 50-plus retail stores, new campus, existing offices, and data center in Newark — all offset by this solar farm. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the new solar farm today as he spoke at Goldman Sachs Technology conference, and called it Apple's 'most ambitious project ever'.

"We are doing this because it's right to do, but you may also be interested to know that it's good financially to do it" said Cook, adding "we expect to have a very significant savings, because we have a fixed price for the renewable energy, and there's quite a difference between that price and the price of brown energy."

The solar farm will be accomplished via a partnership with First Solar.

Though 'ambitious', the solar project isn't a new one for Apple. They've sprung up several solar farms around the country, and recently announced another in Arizona to power along their data center there, which will take the place of their defunct Sapphire glass plant.

It wasn't made clear when Apple plans to finalize the solar farm build out with First Solar, but considering their new 'spaceship' campus will be completed in 2016 — and this solar farm is meant to power it — we'll assume sometime next year is a good expectation to have.