Large, Flat Commercial Rooftops Ideal for Solar
Solpod has developed the world’s first redeployable rooftop solar PV. Our solpods are ideal for large, flat rooftops, particularly suited for shopping centres, warehouses, and in the United States, buildings known as ‘box stores’ and ‘superstores.’
Solpods are relocatable, rapidly installed via cranes, with businesses having the choice of buying or leasing the solar pods. There remains a vast quantity of untapped commercial roof space in Australia and in the US, that could be used to generate clean, renewable energy with installed solar PV.
Aryn Baker recently wrote in Time Magazine: “The United States’ obsession with Big Box stores—the Walmarts, Targets, Ikeas, and Home Depots that are as much consumption-as-entertainment as bulk buying opportunities—provides some 109,000 acres of prime, solar-panel-ready rooftop real estate.”
The scale of that rooftop space is very large, and by the estimate provided in Time Magazine: “That’s enough to produce more than 50 million megawatt hours of electricity a year—and power 5.2 million households—assuming 477 megawatt hours per year, per acre for utility scale photovoltaics.”
Superstore Rooftops in the US are Untapped for Solar
Superstores in the US are primed for solar. Environment America Research and Policy Center and Frontier Group prepared a report in 2022 called ‘Solar on Superstores: Big roofs, big potential for Renewable Energy.’ The report states: “Putting solar panels on the nation’s superstores would be good for businesses, good for electricity customers, good for the grid and good for the environment.”
Solpod has installed solar panels on rooftops on many commercial and industrial sites, including 100kW on Woolworths Wellington, Google Australia’s Headquarters at GPT’s ‘Workplace 6’ building in Pyrmont, Sydney, Parkmore Shopping Centre (GPT) in Keysborough, Melbourne, Stanhope Gardens Village in Sydney (Mirvac) and Quad 1 (GPT) at Sydney Olympic Park.
The Environment America Research and Policy Center and Frontier Group Report found: “Generating the full 84.4 TWh of clean solar power potential from America’s superstores would reduce global warming pollution by more than 52 million metric tons of CO2 annually – equivalent to taking over 11.3 million passenger vehicles off the road.”
The Report found: “Generating the full 84.4 TWh of clean solar power potential from America’s superstores would reduce global warming pollution by more than 52 million metric tons of CO2 annually – equivalent to taking over 11.3 million passenger vehicles off the road.”
Commercial Rooftop Solar
The founders of Solpod developed a product to meet the opportunity for commercial rooftop solar and address the constraints that businesses face. Many businesses face barriers in adopting rooftop solar including: building leases, concerns about rooftop integrity with solar panels installed as well as finance. The Solpod solar solution has addressed these concerns.
- Fully redeployable rooftop solar PV product;
- Ability for businesses to lease the solar pods;
- Flexible finance terms to suit businesses, including those that lease their buildings;
- Solpod solar pods are not permanently attached to the roof, installed and removed with the roof in tact;
- Ideal for large, flat rooftops such as warehouses, supermarkets, big box stores, superstores and commercial buildings.
Solpod has made it easier for the commercial sector to adopt rooftop solar PV. Eric Tegethoff wrote in Public New Service about the opportunity big stores and warehouses offer for rooftop solar. “To combat climate change, help their communities, increase resilience and reduce energy expenses, businesses should set ambitious goals to install solar generation capacity on their facilities and invest the resources needed to meet those goals.”
Baker for Time Magazine says: “We may have paved over paradise to put up shopping centers, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, but if we panel the roofs, we may be able to get some of that paradise back.”
See the following video that outlines a Solpod installation on Globe headquarters in Melbourne:
Solpods are proudly Australian Made and manufactured. Find out more about Solpod’s redeployable solar pods by emailing info@solpod.com.au or call +03 9089 0753.