The purchase will be made from SunEdison, America's largest solar energy service provider. The plan will cover as much as 1% of the States solar energy 10-year objective, or around 30 MW, being able to offset around 12,700 tons of CO2 annually.
The company is considering similar initiatives in other states, as a result of a study of its energy use that Kohl started two years ago. However the exact locations seem to be unknown yet. The company expects not only to respect the environment, but also to save money in the long term, as electricity prices are expected to go up.
Construction works in two of the stores will begin in May. The company owns a total of 80 stores in California, althogh in the short term they are not looking at installing solar power in all of them.
California set a 3 GW solar-power objective for 2017, which would make it one of the world's leading areas, possibly at the same level as Germany or Japan by then. The state, with plenty of roof space on its thousands of malls, could take advantage of this factor and build solar facilities with easy connection to the grid and low visual impact. "It takes our roof from being something not very glamorous to being very useful," a company representative said. Indeed, he was right.
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