SUNSHINE SOLUTION COSTCO TO USE RENEWABLE ENERGY.Byline: Daily News LANCASTER -- Costco Wholesale Corp.'s Lancaster warehouse store will get some of its electricity from the sun. Southern California-based Permacity Corp. is installing hundreds of RWE RWE Rot-Weiss Essen (Germann football club) RWE Ralph Waldo Emerson RWE Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke (German Power Supplier) RWE Read Write Execute RWE Right Wing Extremist Schott Solar photovoltaic The generation of voltage by a material that is exposed to light in the visible and invisible ranges. See photoelectric and photovoltaic cell. panels on the flat store roof. Each panel can produce 310 watts, and 1,860 panels atop the store will provide as much as 40 percent of the building's peak electrical load If an electric circuit has a well-defined output terminal, the circuit connected to this terminal (or its input impedance) is the load. (The term 'load' may also refer to the power consumed by a circuit; that topic is not discussed here. on a summer day. ``It seems like a good environment for solar power,'' said Craig Peal, a Costco official. ``It's high desert, and Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, power prices are fairly high.'' This is Costco's first solar-power system, a practical test of how well it works. Costco officials hope solar power will supply 19 percent of the Lancaster store's electricity year- around. ``We're looking at other sites'' that could also use solar power, added Peal, an assistant vice president. The local system is expected to be operational in late August or early September. Permacity has installed solar-power systems on other large commercial buildings around Southern California, as well as on residential buildings in the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. area, the Coachella Valley Coachella Valley (kō'əchĕl`ə), arid region, SE Calif., N of the Salton Sea. Water is brought into the region by artesian wells and by the Coachella Canal (123 mi/198 km long), a branch of the All-American Canal built between 1938 and and Kern County. Customers seem interested in helping the environment as well as reducing rising power costs, said Jonathan Port, president and chief executive officer of Permacity. ``Our motto is `the solar evolution.' I think they want to be part of that,'' he said. State rebates and tax incentives help pay for most of the installation cost, Port said, adding, ``California seems committed to going the renewable path.'' The Lancaster Costco system covers nearly 45,000 square feet of roof area and sits among 200 skylights. Permacity designed a nonpenetrating roof mounting system, for which it is obtaining a patent, that holds the modules off the aluminum roof at a 10-degree angle. The modules help shade the roof, decreasing the work required from the building's air conditioners. When finished, the local Costco's photovoltaic system will be among the largest in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. of those that are privately owned, Permacity officials said. CAPTION(S): 2 photos |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion