South California Edison Rolls Out First Of 150 Solar Paneled Buildings

December 2, 2008 7:54 a.m. EST

Sacramento, CA (AHN) - California continues to take the lead among U.S. states in pursuing green initiatives. On Monday, Southern California Edison launched the first of 150 projects involving commercial buildings with giant solar panels installed on the roof that it plans over the next five years.

The first building Edison outfitted with solar panels is Fontana-based logistics company ProLogis Incorporated, which has 33,700 solar panels spread on its 600,000 square-foot warehouse rooftop. The solar panel project cost ProLogis $10 million. It could light up 1,300 homes.

When all 150 buildings have been outfitted with solar panels by Edison, they could generate 250 megawatts of electricity, sufficient to power 160,000 homes.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who switched to the 2-megawatt system, encouraged Edison to accelerate the project to retrofit more commercial buildings with solar panels.

Business owners are happy with the boost to the real estate value from the solar panels, but consumer activists are not because of the high cost of generating electricity through the solar panels supplied by an Arizona firm. The cost of power sources from ProLogis' rooftop is $0.27 a kilowatt hours, while power from conventional sources cost only $0.08.

One advantage for California to succeed in growing the green industry is that the state government has been very supportive in terms of laws and incentives.

Andrew Hargadon, head of the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California, told the Sacramento Bee, "The reality of the marketplace is that most energy consumption is driven by public sector policies and customers... Fundamentally, startups in the energy sector are facing a completely different environment than startups in Silicon Valley have faced over the last 30 to 40 years."