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Applied Materials Activates 2.1-MW Solar System

September 22, 2008 | 3 Comments

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California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Applied Materials and SunPower Corporation have announced the completion of two SunPower solar power systems totaling 2.1 megawatts (MW) at Applied Materials' corporate facilities in Sunnyvale, California. The systems represent one of the largest solar power deployments at a corporate facility in the United States.

"We've converted our parking lots to power plants and we encourage others to join us in making solar power a meaningful part of the energy supply."

-- Mike Splinter, President and CEO, Applied Materials

The system includes a 950-kilowatt SunPower PowerGuard installation and a 1.2-MW SunPower Tracker installation that was placed on an elevated parking canopy. Both systems use SunPower solar panels and SunPower uses Applied Materials' Baccini technology in its solar cell manufacturing process. Since the first phase of the installation in November 2007, Applied reported that its solar system has generated 1,413 megawatt-hours (MWh) of power.

"This is another exciting milestone in the adoption of solar power in California," said Mike Splinter, president and CEO of Applied Materials. "More companies are realizing the wisdom of integrating solar as a non-intrusive, clean, silent form of energy generation into our businesses and communities. We've converted our parking lots to power plants and we encourage others to join us in making solar power a meaningful part of the energy supply."

Solar Energy

3 Reader Comments

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1 of 3

mortimer-shnerdlyfrump-47009

September 22, 2008

It's good to see projects like this, but they make me wonder, "What's happening with Nanosolar of San Jose and Ausra of Las Vegas?" Nanosolar opened its doors for production almost a full year ago. They are supposed to be producing 430MW a year. In June they announced a printer that can print 1GW of solar cells a year. I haven't seen a single panel of theirs. I know they like to be secretive, and I can't blame them, but how do you hide 430MW? With them in production, how does a 2.1MW system still make the news?

Ausra opened its doors in April of this year with the ability to annually produce 700MW of solar trough concentrators. It's now 5 months later and I haven't heard a single project announced. The main announcement I heard in the "Large Deployment" area of solar was Bush bragging that he was able to stop any new large projects on BLM land for the coming years as "environmental studies" take place. It's been okay to use that land for any other type of development, but when it comes to cleaning the environment, our environmentally friendly administration puts a halt to it, "Make no mistake about it. This will not stand."

Comment
2 of 3

edward-frantz-151534

September 24, 2008

I heard that Nanosolar is only selling large projects to small citys or to a utility. I do know that a large utility bought a major share of the company. I guess you know what this means. Also, we need one of these new companies to offer their products thru the normal distribution channel. Apparently, one of the concerns from many of the current contractors is that there is not enough product history to know how well this new technology will hold up in tough enviroments. Time wil tell.

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3 of 3

solarMD

December 5, 2008

Congratulations, Applied Materials. Well done, I visited
this site a few days later and was quite impressed.
As Mr. Splinter announced, Applied Material could go
one step further by show-casing this exemplary case
history of the design, construction, operation, financial
and environmental returns of this project in an on-line
monitoring website.
This will serve as a road-map for other businesses who
want to follow suit in doing their own projects.
We at Wattminder.com would be glad to assist in this
effort by offering some innovative techniques that are
scientific and diagnostific, thus very educational for a
best practice kind of demonstration web site.

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