Solar panels in malls and stores reduce US emissions

With the US trying to wean itself from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and making the switch to cleaner energy sources, many experts are eyeing a promising solution: your neighborhood’s big-box stores and malls.

The rooftops and parking lots available at retail giants like Walmart, Target and Costco are immense. These are largely empty spaces with untapped potential for solar energy that could help the US reduce its dependence on foreign energy, reduce planet-warming emissions and save businesses millions of dollars in the process.

At the IKEA store in Baltimore, installing solar panels on the roof and in the parking lot reduced the amount of energy needed by 84%, lowering its costs by 57% from September to December 2020, according to the company. The panels also provide beneficial shade to keep customers’ cars cool on hot, sunny days.

As of February 2021, IKEA had 54 solar panels installed in 90% of its US stores.

Large stores and shopping malls have enough roof space to produce half of their annual electricity needs from solar energy, according to a report by nonprofit Environment America and research firm Frontier Group.

Harnessing the full solar potential of the roofs of these superstores would generate enough electricity to power nearly 8 million average homes and reduce the same amount of planet-warming emissions as taking 11.3 million gasoline-powered cars off the road.

A Walmart store has an average of 17,000 square meters of roof, according to the report — that is, about three football fields and enough space to support solar energy that could power the equivalent of 200 homes.

“Every roof in the US that is not producing solar energy is a wasted roof as we work to end our dependence on fossil fuels and the geopolitical conflicts that come with them,” said Johanna Neumann, Senior Campaign Director for 100% Energy. Environment America renewable. “Now is the time to bet on local renewable energy production, and there’s no better place to do that than on the roofs of big American stores.”

Advocates involved in clean energy worker training programs tell the CNN that a solar retail revolution would also bring significant gain to local communities, spurring economic growth and tackling the climate crisis, which has done disproportionate damage to marginalized communities.

However, only a fraction of large stores in the U.S. have solar power on their roofs or solar canopies in parking lots, the report’s authors told CNN.

THE CNN contacted five of the biggest US retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Home Depot, Costco and Target — to ask: Why not invest in more rooftop solar?

Many renewable energy experts point to solar energy as a relatively simple solution to reduce costs and help curb fossil fuel emissions. However, companies cite a number of obstacles — regulations, labor costs, and the structural integrity of the roofs themselves — that are holding back wider adoption.

The need for these types of clean energy initiatives is becoming “unquestionably urgent” as the climate crisis accelerates, said Edwin Cowen, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University.

“We are at least late. I would love to see the policy help encourage solar on rooftops 15 years ago instead of five years ago in commercial space. There is still a lot of work to do.”

Why the delay?

Neumann said Walmart, the country’s biggest retailer, has by far the greatest solar potential. Walmart has about 5,000 stores in the U.S. and more than 72 square kilometers of roof space (an area larger than Manhattan) and more than 8,974 gigawatt-hours of annual rooftop solar potential, according to the report.

That’s enough electricity to power more than 842,000 homes, according to the report.

Walmart spokeswoman Mariel Messier told CNN that the company is involved in renewable energy projects around the world, but many of them are not rooftop solar installations.

The company reports that it has completed wind and solar projects above and outside the stores or has others under development with the capacity to produce more than 2.3 gigawatts of renewable energy.

Neumann explained that Environment America has met with Walmart a few times, asking the retailer to commit to installing solar panels on roofs and parking lots. The company said it aims to source 100% of its energy from renewable projects by 2035.

“Of all the retailers in the United States, Walmart should make the biggest impact if they put solar energy on the roof of all their stores,” Neumann told CNN. “The report only underscores the impact they can have if they make this decision.”

According to Environment America, Walmart installed nearly 194 megawatts of solar capacity at its US facilities at the end of fiscal 2021 and additional capacity at offsite solar farms. The company’s California facilities were expected to supply between 20% and 30% of each site’s electricity needs.

Target ranked number one for on-site solar capacity in 2019, according to the latest report from the Solar Energy Industries Association. The chain currently has 542 rooftop solar-powered locations, or about a quarter of the chain’s stores, a Target spokesperson told Reuters. CNN. Solar power on the roof generates enough energy to meet 15% to 40% of the energy needs of Target properties.

Richard Galanti, Costco’s chief financial officer, said the company has 121 rooftop solar-powered stores around the world, 95 of which are in the US.

Walmart, Target and Costco did not share with CNN what are your biggest barriers to adding solar panels on roofs or parking lots to more stores.

Approximate number of homes businesses could power with rooftop solar

Walmart — 842,700

Target – 259,900

Home Depot – 256,600

Kroger – 192,500

Costco – 87,500

Source: Environment America, Frontier Group’s “Solar on Superstores” report.

“My suspicion is that they want it to be more profitable to change course,” Neumann said. “Historically, all these roofs have done is cover their stores, and rethinking how they use their buildings and thinking of them as power generators, not just rain protection, requires a little change to their business model.”

Home Depot, which has about 2,300 stores, currently has 75 solar projects completed, 12 under construction and more than 30 planned for future development, said Craig D’Arcy, the company’s director of energy management. Solar power generates about half of the energy needs of these stores, on average.

Aged roofs in stores are a “huge deterrent” to solar installation, D’Arcy added. If a roof needs to be replaced in the next 15 to 20 years or sooner, it doesn’t make financial sense for Home Depot to add solar systems today.

“We aim to implement a solar roof where the savings are attractive,” said D’Arcy.

THE CNN also contacted Kroger, which has about 2,800 stores in the US. Kristal Howard, a spokesperson for Kroger, said the company currently has 15 properties (stores, distribution centers and factories) with solar installations. One of the “multiple factors that affect the viability of a solar installation” is the stores’ ability to support a rooftop solar installation, Howard said.

Cowen, the Cornell University engineering professor, said solar is already attractive, but that labor costs, incentives and different layers of regulation likely pose financial barriers to solar installations.

“For them, that usually means hiring a local company that can do this installation and that also knows local politics,” Cowen said. “It’s just another layer of complexity that I think is starting to make sense because the costs have come down enough, but it needs to reopen that door to enter an existing building.”

Representative Sean Casten of Illinois, who co-chairs the House electrics task force, said the US “has not provided incentives for people who have the experience to build these things.” For him, the reason retail companies and the energy industry haven’t made much progress on solar is because “our system is so disjointed” and has a complex regulatory framework.

“Why aren’t we doing something that makes economic sense? The answer is this terribly disjointed federal policy, where we massively subsidize the extraction of fossil energy and penalize the production of clean energy”, commented the deputy. “For a long, long time, if you wanted to build a solar panel on the roof of Walmart, your biggest enemy would be your local power utility, because they wouldn’t want to lose the customer.”

“We could have done this decades ago,” Casten added. “And if we had done that, we wouldn’t be in this terrible position with the weather and we’d still have a lot more money in our pockets.”

social equity

For Charles Callaway, director of organization for the non-profit group WE ACT for Environmental Justice, there are only advantages to strengthening rooftop solar capacity in large retail stores, especially if companies allow the local community to benefit through installation or share the electricity produced afterwards.

Either way, this would greatly undermine containment of the climate crisis and help usher in an equitable transition from fossil fuels – which is possible, according to Callaway.

A resident of New York, he led a worker training program that helped train more than 100 members of the local community, mostly people of color, to become solar installers. He also formed a solar worker cooperative to ensure that many of the training program participants get jobs in a difficult market.

In the past two years, Callaway said his group has not only installed solar panels on the roofs of affordable housing, but also equipment capable of producing two megawatts of solar energy in shopping centers in upstate New York.

He emphasized that local contracting would be more beneficial as local installers are better acquainted with the community and local regulations.

“One of my biggest concerns is social equity,” Cowen said. “Access to renewable energy is something for the very privileged these days, and we have to find ways to make that not be true.”

Jasmine Graham, energy justice policy manager at WE ACT, said the potential to build solar on the roof of large superstores is encouraging, but only “if these projects use local labor, if they are paying prevailing wages, and if that solar energy is being used in a way that community solar energy, which would allow for discounts on bills [de serviços públicos] for people who live in the same public service zone”.

Pressure is mounting for global leaders to act urgently on the climate crisis after a UN report in late February warned that the window for action was rapidly closing.

Neumann believes the US can meet its energy demand with renewable energy. For her, all it takes is the political will to make this change and the inclusion of the local community so that no one is left behind in the transition.

“The sooner we make this transition, the sooner we will have cleaner air, a more protected environment and better health and a more livable future for our children.” “And even if that requires investment, it is an investment worth making.”

CNN’s Judson Jones contributed to the report.