Add Macy's to the quickly the growing list of retailers who are making a significant deployment of solar energy systems on some of their California stores. This list includes Whole Foods, Staples, Kohl's, and Wal-Mart, who are all pursuing solar energy service arrangements by which they purchase electricity from a solar generation system located on their roof but owned by someone else. In this case, SunPower/PowerLight will build 26 systems, sell 15 of them outright to Macy's, and operate the remaining 11 under solar energy services Power Purchase Agreements. The solar energy services model is compelling - clearly a lot of big names are jumping on board - but Macy's, at least, seems willing to explore the financial and logistical impact of owning the solar photovoltaics compared to just buying the output.
del.icio.usSunEdison landed a big deal today, entering engaging Kohl's Department Stores to install solar PV systems on 64 stores out of Kohl's 80 stores in California. Already in chain deals with Whole Foods and Staples, SunEdison seems to be positioning themselves for potentially explosive growth.
Well, just as quickly as Nellis AFB lays claim to the largest solar installation in North America, the government of Ontario Canada announced plans to fund an installation nearly three times the size. Details are sketchy to me, but the system will be built by a Canadian division of Hayward, California based OptiSolar. Who is OptiSolar? Well, that's not entirely clear to me either. They are an OEM but the story aludes to them playing the DOM/PPA field. But they sure do appear to be good at it. Other PPA engagements in the news recently price electricity at a discount - this one, at 42 cents / kWh, tacks on quite a premium. Now, granted, that may be CANADIAN cents, but I'm pretty sure that's a nice take in Californian dollars.