Swedish furniture giant IKEA has installed solar panels on five of its Spanish stores with the panels being supplied by REC, one of the largest European global suppliers of solar panels. An intensive year of collaboration between the two companies has resulted in more than 38,000 REC solar panels being installed at IKEA stores in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), Malaga, Sabadell (Barcelona), and two Distribution centres in Valls (Tarragona).
IKEA Spain made the decision to go solar because of the large amount of rooftop space it has available along with the Spanish climate which receives plenty of sunlight. Of the five stores receiving solar arrays, the first to go into operation was that at IKEA Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) which was completed in September 2012. The facility here consists of 10,164 REC panels on the roof of the store and its associated carport, with a total capacity of 2,439 kWp. The entire production capacity of 3 million kWh per year is fed into the national grid and is equivalent to 80 percent of the store’s electricity consumption during 2012.
The largest of the new facilities is at the IKEA Distribution Centre in Valls Tarragona where 18,400 REC Peak Energy 250 solar panels have been mounted in two twin 2MW installations which together generate nearly 6 million kWh of clean solar energy per year. Of the new installations, only IKEA Sabadell produces energy for self-consumption. The roof installation here comprises 480 REC Peak Energy solar panels producing approximately 158,000 kWh annually. The most recent installation, that at IKEA Malaga, consists of 9,200 panels on the roof of the store and the carport, generating a total of 2.9 million kWh each year, enough to meet two thirds of the store’s electricity consumption.
REC has already provided panels for IKEA stores in the USA and Germany and the company said it was delighted to be continuing its collaboration with the company in Spain. The IKEA solar installations are part of a major company project entitled “IKEA Renewable” which was launched in 2007 and seeks to ensure that each store can generate an equivalent amount of energy from renewable sources to cover its own demands. Since it was first launched the project has been able to reduce IKEA’s power bill by almost 2 million euros per year with achieved energy savings of 11,795MWh.
“The fact that IKEA has chosen REC solar panels for its installations in Spain this year is testament to the quality and reliability of our products” said Luc Graré, Senior Vice President Solar Sales and Marketing, REC. “We are proud to be playing such an active role in IKEA’s commitment to renewable energy generation.”
Despite its thousands of hours of sunshine every year, Spain is a challenging market for solar power investment as the government has been working steadily to eliminate incentives and drive down the cost of subsidies. Investment in the industry is already impacted by numerous retroactive cuts to the country’s Feed-in Tariff and the government has also decided to cap the profits of some renewable power producers.
In such an economic climate projects such as those implemented by IKEA have offered a vein of opportunity to the solar sector which REC has moved swiftly to exploit.
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