Solar Power Thread

[amor de cosmos]

BREAKING NEWS: And The Earth Moved: General Motors Throws Its Weight Behind Solar
February 6, 2013 Frank Andorka



GM has decided to take its considerable talents and power, and put themselves full-force into the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

So what? you might say. Another company is joining SEIA. Why is this big news?

Well, oh skeptical friends, this is not just any company. This is General Motors, the company about which President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson legendarily once said, “What’s good for GM is good for the country.” This is that GM.

This decision by the company immediately raises the profile of the solar industry infinitely. Consider:

GM’s solar arrays in the United States generated enough electricity in 2012 to power 800 U.S. homes. That number is expected to double in 2013.

Its U.S. solar installations include:

• 1.8 MW rooftop solar array at Toledo (Ohio) Transmission Plant expected to generate 3 percent of the plant’s electric consumption.
• 1.237 MW array on the rooftop of its White Marsh, Md. plant near Baltimore – one of the largest in the state – generates nearly 6 percent of the facility’s electric consumption.
• 1 MW solar array on the rooftop of its Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. distribution center. It was the first public solar project in the United States at 1 megawatt when it began operating in 2006.
• 900 kW rooftop array on its parts distribution warehouse in Fontana, Calif.
• 516 kW ground-mount solar array at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly — the largest of its kind in Michigan.
• 350 kW ground-mount array at GM’s Lake Orion Assembly Plant will provide enough energy to power the equivalent of 45 homes annually in Michigan.

In the United States alone, 2.1 percent of GM’s energy consumption comes from renewable resources.

“We’ve been involved in putting solar on our facilities for the past seven years,” Threlkeld said. “GM a lot of experience in the solar industry as an end-user. We’ve learned a number of lessons — good and bad — that we think we can help the industry get its message out to the public.”

In its nine-point sustainability initiative, GM has committed to using 125 MW of power from renewable sources by 2020. Threlkeld said renewable energy used to be 5% of his job — now it’s nearly 100% of his job.

http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/201...l-motors-throws-its-weight-behind-solar/