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Today Wal-Mart announced they’re going to double their use of solar panel on its own facilities. And that could be the way to do it for more commercial players in California, according to its Governor.
Within 18 months, Wal-Mart wants to expand their sustainable energy efforts by adding solar panels on 10 to 20 Wal-Mart facilities in California. That will be in addition to the 18 solar arrays that are currently installed with excisting facilities. The supplier of the new solar panels for Wal-Mart is BP Solar.
After the new solar panels are in place the total capacity of reneweable energy coming from the Wal-Mart facilities will be 32 million kilowatt hours per year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions with 22,500 metric tons, according to the company.
Wal-Mart said that their facilities equipped with solar panels will get 20 to 30 percent of their electric energy from solar power when the whole installation has been rolled out.
“This project is all about taking bold action so we can see solar panels on commercial rooftops all across California while putting people to work,” said Governor Schwarzenegger in a fixed comment. “Today’s action helps prove that even in an economic downturn, it is possible to get serious about clean, renewable energy.” (Picture on the right from a press conference webcast this morning)
Wal-Mart always has 24 month perspective in their sustainability efforts (See Wal-Mart seeks green ideas). Projects or ideas with a longer perspective will not be considered, at least not on their Cleantech Accelerator Portal (criticized by Greenlight).
At the same time, their long term goal is to be supplied by 100 percent renewable energy, create zero waste and sell sustainable products. When in time this is going to happen is not set up, which makes it a nice but a somewhat stingless goal.
However, the current solar panel installation will create about 130 jobs according to Wal-Mart. After the panels have been installed, Wal-Mart is going to consider expanding the technology to additional sites.
“Thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger’s leadership, California is an excellent environment for us to grow our investment in renewable energy and help create more green jobs,” said Kimberly Sentovich, Wal-Mart’s California regional general manager, in a statement.
