ProLogis today announced a new, 4.8-megawatt (MW) solar project to be installed on eight of its rooftops at ProLogis Park Sant Boi in Barcelona and ProLogis Park Alcala in Madrid, Spain. ProLogis completed its first solar installation in France in 2005, and now has solar installations on 20 buildings covering 7.2 million ft² (669,000 m²) of roof space.
Upon completion of the new project in Spain, we will have more than 11 MW of solar installations on our rooftops, which is enough energy to power more than 1,100 homes per year," said Jack Rizzo, chief sustainability officer for ProLogis. "We are excited about the results of our renewable energy program so far, and expect to grow our portfolio significantly through the ongoing efforts of our Global Renewable Energy Group."
ProLogis has signed a lease agreement with Recurrent Energy, a distributed power company and a leading provider of solar energy, for two million square feet (180,000 square meters) of roof space in Spain. Recurrent Energy, the owner and operator of the system, will use the roof space to host the 4.8-MW solar installation, and will sell the energy produced to the local utility company through a feed-in tariff. ProLogis will provide construction management services in addition to receiving roof rental fees. Construction is expected to commence in October 2009.
"We have more than 450 million ft² (42 million m²) of roof space worldwide, all of which is large, flat, unobstructed and ready to be permitted," said Drew Torbin, director of global renewable energy for ProLogis. "Even with this new installation, we are only utilizing less than 2% of this available roof space, leaving a lot of room for us to grow this new business."
Torbin added, "Our industrial rooftops create a unique host-site opportunity for utilities as well as private groups like Recurrent that invest in clean energy. With this space, we are able to solve one of the most basic issues involved in developing large-scale solar projects - the question of appropriate host sites - while also providing the construction management experience to get solar installations on the fast-track to completion."
The installation will be ProLogis' third solar project in Spain; the company also has installations in Tarragona and Zaragoza. Worldwide, ProLogis has projects located in the United States, Japan, France, Germany and Spain.
Source: ProLogis
