Solar seems to be making waves in big business these days. As more and more companies strive to cut costs and reduce operating expenses, it seems that some have finally realized the economic viability of harassing free energy from the sun.

While it is true that installing solar arrays can be prohibitively expensive for small and medium sized businesses, bigger companies (who use more energy) have access to the resources necessary to make these concepts a reality. What’s great about large companies going green and building renewable energy projects is that, in addition to reducing their use of fossil fuels, the companies are paving the way and (hopefully) lowering the cost of installing these kinds of power projects.

In Contra Costa County, California, one of Budweiser’s cold storage facilities was recently fitted with a 16kW DC solar installation. Designed and installed by Perpetual Power, the installation includes 2,240 185Wp Mitsubishi Electric polycrystalline photovoltaic modules. Once the system is fully up and running, it is expected to produce approximately 60% of the building’s power needs. By adding a solar array to this facility, Budweiser is expected to save $100,000 annually in energy costs.

It seems as if Budweiser isn’t the only one who has noticed the relationship between more sustainable energy sources and tangible financial savings. FedEx Freight has a 282 kilowatt solar power system at its Whittier, California location, and produces 414,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. Alcoa – the mammoth Pittsburgh aluminum manufacturer installed a 588 kW, roof-mounted photovoltaic solar power system at one of its California locations in 2007. Stonyfield Farm has its own solar array too. Installed in 2005 at the company’s Londonderry, NH location, the company has a 50 kW solar photovoltaic array – the largest in New Hampshire.

Big businesses all over the country seem to be waking up to the realities of global warming, and rethinking how they do business. While a solar array here or a wind farm there might seem small in relation to how much we need to do to fight global warming, it’s important to remember that the tide is turning. Corporations tend to go where the money goes, so the fact that profitable businesses like Budweiser, Alcoa, FedEx and Stonyfield Farms are all using renewable energy to run their businesses, may mean that other big businesses aren’t too far behind.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Alternate Energy, Carbon Emissions, Green Business, Mainstream and Green, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.