General Motors Plans 870 kW Solar Power Array

Sep 14 2007

General Motors says it is adding one of the largest solar power installations in corporate use in the U.S. to the roof of its Service and Parts Operations warehouse in Fontana, California. The 870 kW solar power array, that’s 1.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year, will provide about half of the electricity needed to run the facility and will feed enough extra electricity back to the grid to power over 300 California homes for a year.
The Fontana solar array will be installed on GM’s 300,000 square foot warehouse facility and will become operational in December. It joins a similar sized solar installation at another GM Service and Parts Operations warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga.

Constellation Energy will design, build, own, and operate the array. GM has a long-term contract with Constellation to purchase electricity generated from the system.

General Motors estimates that the solar array at its SPO facility in Fontana will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 355 metric tons each year, while reducing its electricity costs by about 10 percent a year.