Kaiser joins Google, Apple in buying clean energy

OAKLAND — Google and Apple are not the only big companies harnessing California’s sunshine and wind to power their workplaces.

Health care giant Kaiser Permanente will announce Wednesday that it has signed deals to buy electricity from a new wind farm to be built at the Altamont Pass, a vast solar plant in Southern California, and more than 100 smaller rooftop solar arrays to be installed at its hospitals, parking garages and medical offices, all of which will reduce its carbon emissions by 30 percent.