Bright Prospects For Large Scale Rooftop Solar Power Generation

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The number of rooftop PV (photovoltaic) solar power installations in business, industrial and public buildings is on a strong upward curve all over the world.

In Houston, Texas a 43kW solar array installation, known as Green Mountain Energy Solar, takes up 6,000 square feet on top of the Upper Kirby District Foundation building, which houses a number of local community business groups. The facility, opened in July, is owned and operated by Nuon, the Netherland's largest utility and a leader in renewable energy development. Green Mountain and Nuon recently dedicated a 57kW solar facility in Dallas as well as another solar array near Cleveland.

The new Houston facility will avoid the production of 45 tons of CO2 annually, which is equivalent to the CO2 produced by 200 car round trips between Dallas and Houston or the amount of CO2 removed from the air by 6,100 trees in a year.

BP Solar (LSE:BPL.L) (London, United Kingdom), the world's largest manufacturer of PV equipment was responsible for the design and installation of the Upper Kirby solar facility. The array is made up of 440 BP solar MSX-120 panels with a total of 31 680 multi-crystalline cells.

In late August the California Department of General Services (DGS) and the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) unveiled the largest state-owned solar electric rooftop installation in California at the FTB's Sacramento headquarters. The DGS has installed a 5,000 solar panel generating facility at its East End Complex in Sacramento.

The 50,000 square foot roof system was designed, manufactured and installed by PowerLight Corporation of Berkeley, California. The new system will supply FTB with nearly half of its energy needs and reduce expensive power purchases from the grid during peak demand periods. The solar powered installation (in contrast to traditional power generation methods) will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide by more than 9 000 lbs and CO2 by more than 11,000 tons during its 25-year lifespan. These emission reductions are equivalent to planting 800,000 trees, removing 4,000 cars from the road or cutting out 50 million miles of car trips. It was installed in six weeks.

In Germany the world's largest roof mounted PV plant at the Munich Trade Fair Center is currently being expanded. From October this year it will provide an additional 1 million kWh of solar energy to the mains supply of Stadtwerke, the cities utility. On an area of 63,000 square meters, spread over the six southern halls of the fair center, 7,560 Shell (LSE:Shel.L) (London, United Kingdom) solar modules are being installed and will provide a peak power output of 1.058 MW. The panels are being installed by Phoenix Sonnenstrom. Cost of the new plant is estimated at $5 million. Together with the original 1MW plant installed in 1997 total out of 2.1 MW would meet the electricity need of 700 households and represent an equivalent annual reduction of 2,000 tons of CO2.

In Germany the Renewable Energy Act regulates both the feeding of solar power into the mains system and its remuneration. In addition, within the framework of the '100,000 Roof' program, the Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) (German Bank of Reconstruction) supports the generation of solar power with loans at favorable rates of interest.