Applied Materials touts 'largest' solar setup
The solar power installation at Applied Materials' headquarters is further evidence that companies looking to go green should think blacktop.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of gear for making high-tech products announced Friday that it has completed the installation a pair of solar power systems that together can produce 2.1 megawatts of energy--which qualifies it, the company says, as the "largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States."
The 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker looks to the sky above the parking lot at Applied Materials.
(Credit: SunPower, via PR Newswire Photo Service)At the nearby Mountain View campus of green-minded Google, an expansive solar installation accounts for 1.6 megawatts. In Nelson, Calif., Far West Rice Mills earlier this year dedicated a 1-megawatt solar array.
Applied Materials splits the solar workload into two pieces serving as a canopy over its parking lot: a 950-kilowatt SunPower PowerGuard installation and a 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker setup.
Parking lots, with their wide-open expanses, are an area of focus for some solar power enthusiasts. Researchers, meanwhile, are looking into the power-generating potential of asphalt itself.
The relationship between SunPower and Applied Materials is mutually reinforcing. The solar panels supplied by SunPower are equipped with solar cells manufactured in a process that uses Baccini technology from Applied Materials.
Applied Materials said its solar power system is expected to eliminate more than 2,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or roughly the output of 450 cars. Since November 2007, when the first part of the system went into operation, the solar energy output has been just over 1,400 megawatt hours.
The company also took the opportunity to put in a plug for congressional renewal of the solar energy tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year. Applied Materials said that an eight-year extension of the tax credit would create 1.2 million job opportunities and stimulate more than $200 billion in solar energy investments.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 
In places like Arizona, where the parking lots often already have structures like that to keep the cars from getting to 150 degrees in the noon-day sun, such a solar conversion would be dead easy.
without success. Previously, I was not able to get a tour of the rooftop site, I have not been able to
identify the right person to approach with my request. Can somebody help? My spreadsheet analyses of the sites show the Carport Tracking system is doing very well. While the rooftop system has a degraded output, by about 10 percent. Our free photovoltaic benchmark web site gives a benchmark
output of 609KW, at 1PM , the solar noon. See www.pvmonitor.net. Hope someone at Applied Materials can be notified about it. So this wasteful (~60KWh per hour)condition can be stopped as soon as possible.
As a friendly neighbor, I would volunteer my service to check on the system, if someone will help arrange it.
- by PVSleuth June 17, 2009 6:20 PM PDT
- I have been watching the two web monitoring pages on these installations. Today, I noticed a degraded output in the rooftop PV farm. I searched the web for particulars on the installation, but
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(6 Comments)without success. Previously, I was not able to get a tour of the rooftop site, I have not been able to
identify the right person to approach with my request. Can somebody help? My spreadsheet analyses of the sites show the Carport Tracking system is doing very well. While the rooftop system has a degraded output, by about 10 percent. Our free photovoltaic benchmark web site gives a benchmark
output of 609KW, at 1PM , the solar noon. See www.pvmonitor.net. Hope someone at Applied Materials can be notified about it. So this wasteful (~60KWh per hour)condition can be stopped as soon as possible.
As a friendly neighbor, I would volunteer my service to check on the system, if someone will help arrange it.