General Motors & Solar Power

Quick -- who owns the two largest rooftop solar stations in the US? If you guessed General Motors (yup, the car company), you'd be correct. Not content with that, General Motors also has the world's largest rooftop source of power from the sun at its plant in Spain. Who knew!

In the U.S., their rooftop stations are located atop warehouse facilities in both Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga, California, and have been operational for a couple of years now. Electricity generated by the solar array, but not used by the GM facilities, is fed back into the electrical grid for sale to other area residents and businesses. During spring and fall, which in California are periods of high sunshine combined with low air conditioning needs, the system will generate extra electricity for the grid.

Last summer, GM began installing 85,000 solar panels on top of its Zaragoza plant in Spain, covering over 2 million square feet. These will provide over 10 megawatts of power from a renewable energy source that will not only be used by the factory (responsible for over 480,000 vehicles) but also by the local power grid.

Providing "green" energy to the local community's power grid -- and I thought GM just made cars.

Interested in the field of green technology and wondering what areas it might encompass? A good place to start is Chicago's Center for Green Technology.

A Solar Cemetery

From the BBC, I've learned that the Spanish city of Santa Coloma de Gramanet, near Barcelona, has definitely found an unusual place to generate renewable energy; to wit: the local cemetery. Like many European cities, the cemetery at Santa Coloma de Gramanet has mausoleums, and their nice wide roofs were a perfect spot for solar panels since they were one of the few open, sunny places in the crowded city.

To date, 462 solar panels have been installed over some of the cemetery's mausoleums. It's projected that these panels will create enough energy each year to supply the needs of 60 homes and keep about 62 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year. Very green, very nice. The current installation covers less than 5% of the cemetery's total surface area, and there are plans to install more solar panels.

This is another in the continuing posts on interesting ways to apply technology. But before you think this is just some crazy European thinking, let me remind you that the Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will help create five million new jobs (that's 5,000,000):

• by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. (change.gov).

This is expanding a whole new area for applying technology. Think about it. And then think about which classes you'll sign up for in school.