SunPower to Supply Equipment Solutions to Global Solar Power Plant Market

SAN JOSE, CA  --(eSolarEnergyNews)-- SunPower announced today that it now offers the fully-integrated SunPower® Oasis® Power Plant platform directly to solar power plant developers and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) providers through a newly formed SunPower® Solutions business unit. SunPower Solutions enables developers and EPCs to benefit from SunPower's extensive experience over the past decade developing, financing, constructing, operating and maintaining solar power plants.

Green Power EMC and Silicon Ranch Announce Dedication of 52MW Solar Farm

HAZLEHURST,GA--(eSolarEnergyNews) --Green Power EMC, the renewable energy supplier for 38 Georgia Electric Membership Corporations (EMCs), and Silicon Ranch, one of the nation's largest independent solar power producers, today officially dedicated a 52-Megawatt (MWAC) solar energy plant in Jeff Davis County, Georgia. The 480-acre facility features technology that allows more than 630,000 solar panels to track the sun from east to west and will provide enough low-cost, renewable power to help serve more than 8,500 EMC households annually.

Silicon Ranch hired McCarthy Building Companies, one of the largest American-owned construction firms, to construct the facility, which took more than eight months to build and officially reached commercial operation in December 2016. The project's construction supported more than 300 jobs, the vast majority of which were filled by local labor and local subcontractors.

Walmart Launches Project Gigaton to Reduce Emissions in Company’s Supply Chain

BENTONVILLE, AR.--(eSolarEnergyNews)--Today, during Walmart’s annual Milestone Summit, the company launched a sustainability platform inviting suppliers to join Walmart in committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from their operations and supply chains. Dubbed Project Gigaton, this initiative will provide an emissions reduction toolkit to a broad network of suppliers seeking to eliminate one gigaton of emissions, focusing on areas such as manufacturing, materials and use of products by 2030. That’s the equivalent to taking more than 211 million passenger vehicles off of U.S. roads and highways for a year.

Walmart is the first retailer with a verified science-based target emissions-reduction plan. The company aims to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 18 percent by 2025. The retailer will also work to reduce CO2e, or carbon dioxide equivalent, emissions from upstream and downstream Scope 3 sources by one billion tons (a gigaton) between 2015 and 2030.

LG to Give Tesla's PowerWall a Run For Its Money

ROY, MI.--(eSolarEnergyNews)--LG Chem Ltd., a global leader in lithium-ion batteries for automotive, stationary and consumer applications, has formally launched its range of award-winning residential battery systems in the North American market.

The launch follows successful completion of UL certification and represents LG Chem’s initial foray into the North American residential market. Since 2013, LG Chem has been at the forefront of providing residential battery storage (RESU) systems and has earned a strong reputation for quality, reliability and dependability.

IKEA to Install Indiana’s Largest Retail Solar Rooftop on Future Store Opening Fall 2017 in Fishers, IN

FISHERS, IN.--(eSolarEnergyNews)--IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced plans to install solar panels atop its future Indianapolis-area store opening Fall 2017 in Fishers, IN. Panel installation will begin later this spring, with completion expected this summer for what will be the largest retail solar rooftop in the State of Indiana.

The Fishers store’s 219,000-square-foot solar array will consist of a 1.34 MW system, built with 3,888 panels, and will produce approximately 1,752,845 kWh of electricity annually for the store, the equivalent of reducing 1,358 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) – equal to the emissions of 260 cars or providing electricity for 182 homes yearly (calculating clean energy equivalents at www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator).

Even in Coal Country Businesses Demand Clean Energy

Kevin Butt's job is to find cleaner ways to power Toyota. One of the hardest places to do that is at the automaker's sprawling plant in central Kentucky, a state where nearly 90 percent of electricity still comes from coal.

Butt points out a new engine assembly line, where a conveyor belt moves in a slow circle. He says it was specially designed with a more efficient motor. There are also enormous fans overhead and LED lights, all changes that save millions.

"I mean, what company doesn't want to reduce their energy bill," he says.
That's the business case for going green. And in a lot of places around the country, solar and wind are now the cheapest energy option. But a few years ago, Toyota decided that by 2050 all of its operations, all around the world, should be zero-carbon.

Trina Solar Launches Bifacial PERC Module "DUOMAX Twin"

BEIJING, CHINA --(eSolarEnergyNews)-- Trina Solar, a global leader in solar photovoltaic modules, solutions, and services, today announced that it launched its high-efficiency bifacial module DUOMAX Twin at Clean Energy Expo China (CEEC Expo) 2017 in Beijing.

The DUOMAX Twin, is an innovative solar module integrating the technology of Trina Solar's high efficiency bifacial PERC cell and Duomax module. Trina Solar is an industry leader in the research and development of PERC cell technology and production, achieving several world records in mono-PERC cell conversion efficiency. Trina Solar's extensive experience in mass producing DUOMAX module has been validated by its customers worldwide, with total shipments of over 1 Gigawatt over the past years.