Solar Activity | Green Energy News

January 18, 2004 – Vol.8 No.43

SOLAR ACTIVITY.

Now there are two 5-megawatt solar projects under construction. One was previously announced by Southern California Edison (SCE) to be built in Barstow, California. The latest announced will be built in Germany by Shell Solar and Gesellschaft fur Solarenergie (GEOSOL).

To compete as the largest solar project in the world, the Shell Solar/GEOSOL free-standing array will be built on the site of a former lignite ash deposit near Espenhain, south of Leipzig. As prime contractor on the project, Shell Solar will provide 33,500 SQ series solar modules. The SQ series, which uses monocrystalline cells, was developed specifically for grid-connected and industrial applications.

Shell Solar has also just completed a 0.5 megawatt project at the Blijdorp Zoo atop the Oceanium. Power will be used, among other things, to keep the penguin enclosure cool. The highly visible project in urban Rotterdam is known as SunPort.

In the U.S., BP Solar and SunEdison have installed a 120-kilowatt solar system on the roof of a Whole Foods Market in Edgewater, New Jersey. The 14,000 square foot array will provide 20 percent of the store’s power needs.

SunEdison offers turnkey solar solutions to commercial, government and industrial grid-connected customers in the U.S. Customers are hosts to the solar projects (they provide the space to install the system) and pay nothing in capital costs for the service. Projects are owned and financed by SunEdison, who also insures and maintains the systems.

Visit Shell Solar at http://www.shell.com/solar , BP Solar at http://www.bpsolar.com/ and SunEdison at http://www.sunedison.com/