Kohl's plugs into renewable energy

ELDERSBURG, Md. (AP) - Shoppers who step into the Kohl's department store in Eldersburg may not notice anything more environmental about the building, but a recent addition has brought it into the growing ranks of buildings using renewable energy.

Atop the building's roof, Beltsville-based SunEdison has installed 1,500 solar panels that will capture solar radiation from the sun and convert it into electricity, which will be used by the store.

The national Kohl's chain has made a commitment to be more environmentally minded, and in 2008, the company was able to purchase 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy sources, according to a press release from Kohl's.

Sixty-seven stores have solar panels on the roofs, and another 100 stores in six states, including Maryland, are expecting to get more solar energy systems installed, according to John Fojut, Kohl's vice president of facilities.

"We assess opportunities for solar on a case by case basis," Fojut said in an e-mail. "The Eldersburg site was ideal because of the building age and roof condition."

Installation of the solar panels on the Eldersburg store this spring took nine weeks, according to Loretta Prencipe, director of communications for SunEdison.

The system will be capable of producing an average of 297 kilowatt-hour, or more than 5.9 million kwh over 20 years - the equivalency of enough power to supply 559 homes for a year, said Kirk Roller, vice president of sales for SunEdison.

SunEdison owns and maintains all of the solar panels installed with Kohl's buildings, Roller said, which provide a total of 20.9 megawatts of power each year. To put the size of Kohl's operations into perspective, the biggest single solar power production facility in the country is an 8-megawatt facility in Arizona, Roller said.

"They don't have to touch it, they don't have to maintain it - that's our job," Roller said.

Kohl's and SunEdison have a solar power services agreement that sets a fixed rate for all of the electricity the store's panels will provide, helping the store to cut back on the amount it purchases from its local utility provider, Direct Energy, Fojut said. The Kohl's store will remain connected to the power grid, Fojut said, and use that power to supplement the solar power.

Roller said the solar energy system should provide 20 percent to 30 percent of the store's electricity requirements, depending on the time of year and amount of sunlight.

The panels are installed on the rooftop but are still in the final stages of development, Prencipe said. The panels should be made active later this year, she said.

Each panel weighs about 43 pounds, Roller said, and sits at a slight angle facing south to catch more sun. This type of panel is quite appealing to businesses because it is anchored in place using bricks, Roller said. Older systems that required panels being screwed in places would have meant 1,200 holes in the Kohl's roof in the past, he said.

The panels have a 25-year warranty, Roller said, but Kohl's has an agreement to purchase SunEdison's electricity generated by the panels for the next 20 years, after which they can renegotiate the contract.

Stores in Timonium, Hagerstown, Silver Spring and Waldorf are scheduled to get solar panels, Fojut said.

Neil Ridgely, Carroll County Sustainability Coordinator, said he was not familiar with the project at the Eldersburg Kohl's but that he was very impressed.

"It's great news - it's a tremendous use of a huge (unused space)," Ridgely said. "Kudos to them, and I hope it catches on." --- Information from: Carroll County Times of Westminster, Md., http://www.carrollcounty.com/

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)