US retail giant Walmart has expanded its solar presence in the US with its first solar installations in the state of Ohio.
PV installer SolarCity installed PV arrays with a combined capacity of 4.7MW on the rooftops of 12 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores across the state.
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The Walmart and Sam’s Clubs stores equipped with solar power systems are located in Mason, Xenia, Greenville, Austintown, Middletown, Franklin, Youngstown, Toledo, Milford, Loveland and two systems in Cincinnati.
In total, the PV installations will generate an estimated 6 million kWh of electricity every year. Each PV array will supply around 5-20% of each store’s electricity needs.
“Walmart's installation of solar on 12 store rooftops is the largest solar commitment ever made by a retail business in Ohio,” said Bill Spratley, Executive Director of Green Energy Ohio. “At more than four and a half megawatts, it represents almost a tenth of all the solar installed in Ohio currently. It is exciting to see that Walmart's solar arrays will also eliminate 5,500 tons of CO2e or the equivalent of taking the emissions of 1,152 cars off the road each year.”
Including these latest installations, SolarCity has now installed PV systems on Walmart stores in four US states, namely California, Colorado, Arizona and Ohio.
Walmart has a goal to be powered 100% by renewable energy. The US EPA Green Power Partnership programme ranks Walmart as the largest on-site green power generator in the US.
“Walmart continues to forge new ground as the number one corporate solar user in America,” said SolarCity’s CEO Lyndon Rive. “This project brings SolarCity to the state of Ohio for the first time, and is expected to increase the state’s overall solar generation capacity by more than 10%.”
