At some point the city of Bentonville, AR, population 30,000, became damn near the center of the world. Bentonville is home to Wal-Mart. Today, news out of Bentonville that everyone has been (well, we have) waiting for. Wal-Mart will move forward with their pilot of solar power systems at 22 of their stores in California and Hawaii.
While Wal-Mart has been hush hush about the details until now, the names on the short list are perhaps unsurprising. PowerLight, SunEdison, and BP Solar will split the contract, with each doing 7 or 8 installs. Interestingly, while we have seen the service provider owning the RECs generated by their installs (presumably to sell them after market), in this case Wal-Mart will retain ownership of them. Presumably that knocks their contract cost up a bit, and provides evidence that Wal-Mart is thinking about a little bit more than just the bottom line in this case. Huzzah.
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Wal-Mart announced today that Powerlight/SunPower/Cypress Semi will do the installs on 7 California facilities. The total system will generate 4.6MW. The business deal is based on a PPA with a buy-out option after the initial term. Interestingly, they are offering Wal-Mart the option to have the equipment moved to another facility at the end of the term as well.
With SunPower making the panels, their price per watt would be hard to beat compared to any other installers.