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Amazon Pledges To Cover 15 Massive Warehouse Rooftops With Solar Panels (arstechnica.com)
Amazon announced earlier this week that it would install solar panels on 15 of its fulfillment and sorting centers around the U.S. in 2017. "Depending on the specific project, time of year, and other factors, a solar installation could generate as much as 80 percent of a single fulfillment facility's annual energy needs," Amazon wrote in a press release. "That energy will provide electricity for everything from keeping the lights on to powering Amazon Robotics at fulfillment centers," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Amazon is finding stride with other major companies, but it's a bit short compared to some of its more ambitious peers. For example, Google announced in December that by the end of 2017 it would be using a carbon offsets program to pay for as much renewable energy as all of its data centers and offices worldwide consumed. The search giant said at the time that the move to renewable energy wasn't just for show -- it was about avoiding energy price fluctuations in the long term. That's a sentiment Amazon echoed as well in its Tuesday press release. "We are putting our scale and inventive culture to work on sustainability -- this is good for the environment, our business, and our customers," wrote Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations. "By diversifying our energy portfolio, we can keep business costs low and pass along further savings to customers. It's a win-win."
And I for one am glad that Amazon Sustainability is taking such a forward-looking cost-cutting measure by using large-scale renewable energy instead of expensive and polluting fossil fuels for the bulk of their warehouse roofing space.
Kudos to Seattle's former transit czar!
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I mean, Amazon must be getting carbon credits or something for this, right? Right? /s
Who will buy my mountain of dead batteries. First up is my home battery, next is my car battery, then my computer battery and finally you can have my phone battery.
Bozo must have paid his /. bill
He's still going to fill those warehouses with employees who are LITERALLY not allowed to talk to each other under pain of termination.
Covering the entire rooftop of one of these facilities should provide far more electricity than required to operate it. Robots, lighting, and even HVAC should represent fairly modest loads in comparison.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
At what point do we stop praising companies for "going green," when switching to solar just makes financial sense?
The company will net profit from this investment. It also happens to be good for the environment, so hooray, but I'm willing to bet the former was the real reason for this.
It kinda feels like praising companies for cancelling their ritual kitten sacrifice. They might be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, or maybe kittens are just getting pricey, and then you've gotta steam clean the carpets because SOMEONE tracked blood everywhere...
This signature is false.
Although I'm pleased to see this announcement, living here in Lakeland, FL where there's a fairly large Amazon distribution center I'm really disappointed that there's no move this year to put these here, when they're going to be putting them in Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. In virtually every solar radiation average exposure map I've seen, Florida generally receives more solar radiation than all three of those states - and sometimes more than areas of California as well. This area is ripe for this, at least from a physical standpoint. I have to assume there's some sort of governmental roadblock in the way at the moment that isn't to their tastes, because it certainly can't be because they won't generate enough power down here.
Londovir
A typical roofing system on a commercial building begins to fail inside twenty years. It costs a crapton of money to roof/re-roof a building when there are only a few obstacles. Now cover it with retrofitted solar panels; labor intensive at best. Nevermind that the building probably wasn't engineered for the additional weight. Providing that 80% of the required power is going to be very expensive.
Serenity now, insanity later.
I happen to know (well) a guy who is a project manager for these and at least 3 are done and running as of last November (2016), and yes, several more are being designed and planned. It's just smart and we need to do it. Energy storage systems are being built and online (while many people babble away about whether it's possible) http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tesla-energy-storage-20170131-story.html/
Never mind the "Depending on the specific project, time of year and other factors" sleaze-speak, behind which is hidden some reality that would temper the tone of the press release... and just going with that absurd 80% figure... what they're describing here is (by definition) a facility that always consumes more energy than it produces. "Gonna give back to the grid" people can remain blissfully silent. So regardless of what it means for them, what it would mean for you is that these Amazon warehouses will be contributing ~80% less annually to the local energy cooperatives whose infrastructure they (and you) rely on to maintain reliable 24/7 electricity delivered over the grid.
Which means your local Amazon-hosting energy cooperative will lose a significant amount of buying power as it routinely makes bulk purchases from the grid. Nevertheless, no one on the grid will be able retire a single generating plant now in operation but they will bring in less revenue because they must remain on standby. Because, night and solar holidays.
There is only one context in which this could be said as a win for everyone, namely a 'theoretical' offset to necessary global electrical capacity by a tiny amount. That is worth something. Actually ~0.0012% of global nameplate capacity. I take that back, this 45 megawatts sounds like a lot but is hardly worth anything. It is half the capacity of the smallest gas-fired plant you'd ever want to build, should you be more concerned with reliability than enrichment of the solar industry. But would be worth even less if true costs of implementation (including manufacture of solar panels, the re-engineering to support extra weight) and the fossil fuel burned in those things might be factored in, which it will most assuredly will not be. Press release land is feelgood land.
Installation of IRRELIABLE energy sources anywhere on the grid is like little skin cancers growing here and there. Gaia worshipers will gladly scratch those itchy bumps until the first round of "Whod'a'Thunk it" brownouts and grid failures begins. They'll imagine that if the worst happens they will be able to retreat into some solar/wind/hydro enclave to enjoy a quaint Medieval lifestyle (with smartphones) while the massive population outside those tiny bubbles just agrees to lay down, starve and die.
Solar and wind will never power the factories that manufacture wind turbines and solar panels, let alone purify your drinking water, treat your sewage or keep you from freezing in Winter. Little green lollipops for environMENTALists to suck on. There's only one way out and it's nuclear.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating Slashdot troll!
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
even Walmart/Target and others can do similar to install solar panels on all the solar region. especially in south.
No, the point of installing solar panels on the roofs is to run ceiling fans and cooling systems during periods of extreme heat and cold.
The main power need for warehouses tends to be at the times when the sun shines most brightly. Most modern warehouses can run dark much of the time, waking up those parts they need when they're used.
The roof space isn't being used, and if you build to modern codes you already need a roof structure that can support modern solar panels. It's a way to monetize your investment, bringing power generation to where it's used, and cutting costs for long distance transmission. You can charge up forklifts and trucks (most modern ones from places like PACCAR) at the same time, or use hot swap battery power. You can even generate water, or split water into power cell fuel.
The world has changed from the old days when I worked in giant warehouses and ran forklifts and power systems. Now it's all integrated, and only used when it's used. Cooling and heating costs are some of the most costly aspects of warehouse operation, and since these are modern warehouses, the labor component is highly robotic in nature.
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