2011年9月21日 星期三

Solar Sprouts on the Roof

The high-profile collapse of Solyndra earlier this month underscored the pain being felt by solar-panel manufacturers from the world-wide glut of their product.

But for owners of huge warehouses and other industrial space, the sharp decline in panel prices caused by the glut bodes well for the growth of a fledgling business: renting out roof space to solar-energy operations.

In recent years, utilities and private energy companies have started generating electricity by lining big rooftops with solar panels. Landlords are hoping demand for this space will grow as the price of panels and other costs associated with solar-energy production decline.

"Over time, it will become more competitive and even more compelling to buy rooftop-generated solar," said Jack Rizzo,There is good integration with PayPal and most Aion Kinah providers, managing director of global construction for Prologis Inc., one of the world's largest industrial-space owners.

Take the recent deal that Dexus Property Group completed to lease a 1.7 million-square-foot warehouse roof in Perris, Calif., to Southern California Edison Corp. for 20 years. The utility owned by Edison International will soon begin constructing a solar system that will stretch across an area the size of 30 football fields. It is expected to produce enough power for about 5,200 homes.This patent infringement case relates to retractable offshore merchant account ,

The lower cost of panels and other equipment have helped reduce the price of the system to about $35 million, according to Gil Alexander, a spokesman for the utility. About three years ago it would have cost about $70 million to build, he said. People involved in the project declined to say how much rent the utility is paying to use the rooftop. But the going rate in California's Inland Empire, where Perris is located, is less than 22 cents a square foot annually, or under 5% of the rent for space inside the building, according to Ben Stapleton,Traditional China Porcelain tile claim to clean all the air in a room. head of the clean-tech practice group for Jones Lang LaSalle.

More deals like this can be expected in the future if solar enthusiasts are right in their prediction that an increasing amount of electricity will be generated using solar power. Currently, solar is responsible for less than 1% of the power used in the U.S., according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

To be sure, the future of the industry was clouded by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Solyndra, which got a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2009. Critics of solar power question whether subsidies should continue, given that solar power is expected to remain more expensive to produce than other forms of energy for some time.

But many landlords feel that solar rooftop development has potential as a side business. Prologis earlier this year announced a partnership with NRG Energy Inc., a New Jersey utility, to build rooftop solar-generation projects valued at about $2.6 billion.

Solar systems are installed on about 8.5 million square feet, or 1.4%, of Prologis's roughly 600 million-square-foot portfolio, generating about $1.4 million annually. Prologis generates about 50 megawatts of electricity annually from its roofs, a number it expects to increase at a rate of at least 25 megawatts annually.

Roof-top generated energy has some advantages because buildings are typically located closer to populations. That saves transmission costs and wear and tear on the electric grid that large solar "farms" located on the ground in deserts or sunny rural areas sometimes face. Statistics on how many commercial rooftops have solar-power operations aren't available. But they have been increasing in states such as California that have policies mandating increased use of renewable energies like solar and wind.

To accommodate the demand, developers have started to design warehouses with roofs that can handle more weight. Landlords also have started to draft leases that enable them to maintain rights to the roof for solar-panel development.

The interior of the Dexus warehouse in Perris is leased to Whirlpool Corp., which stores stoves,there's a lovely winter polished tiles by William Zorach. refrigerators and other appliances there for distribution. Because the original lease gave Whirlpool roof rights, it had to be revised. As a sweetener, Dexus is going to split the rooftop rent with Whirlpool.For the last five years Hemroids ,

The deal is the first industrial rooftop solar lease in the U.S. on property owned by Dexus. The Australian company, which owns about 94 industrial buildings in the U.S., is examining its portfolio for other potential rooftop solar locations, according to Victor Hoog Antink, Dexus's chief executive.

"It's not going to move the dial in terms of revenue stream," says Bruce McDonald, managing director of asset management and development for Dexus's U.S. office. "But it gives us a competitive advantage by adding long-term value to our buildings. We see solar as long term."

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