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Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has continued its solar roll-out by connecting its 31st solar project in the US in the form of a 1,014kW PV system on the rooftop of its Twin Cities store in Bloomington, Minnesota, US.
The PV system covers an area of 142,000 square feet and is Minnesota’s largest rooftop PV system. SoCare Energy, a commercial PV projects developer based in the mid-west of the US, was contracted to develop, design and install the system. The PV array is equipped with 4,316 PV modules which produces approximately 1,161,328 kWh of solar power annually.
Ikea owns and operates each of its solar PV systems atop its buildings as opposed to a solar lease or PPA. With this latest installation, around 70% of its stores in the US now source its electricity from their very own rooftop PV system.
The company remains committed to solar energy and has an additional eight projects under construction. Including these eight projects, when complete, Ikea will have installed PV systems on almost 89% of its US stores with a combined capacity of 38MW.
Earlier this month, Ikea connected its 30th solar project at its Frisco, Texas, store. A week prior to this announcement, the company had completed the installation of its solar energy project at its Draper, Utah, store, as well as at its Bolingbrook and Schaumburg, Illinois, Chicago, stores.
However, the furniture retailer is not just concentrating on stamping its solar mark in the US. Worldwide, the company has allocated €590 million to invest in renewable energy, focusing on solar and wind over the next three years. To date, IKEA has installed over 250,000 PV modules on its stores and buildings worldwide.
