Michelin’s factory in Valladolid, Spain, had been fitted with the largest rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar array to date date in Castile and Leon, and one of the 10 largest arrays in the world.
The solar panel was designed and installed by Cenit-Solar to produce electricity for the facility, as well as to allow Michelin to sell to the national grid. Michelin said Cenit-Solar, a company that performs turnkey energy projects, has integrated the latest technological advances into the array, which will boost the future development of this source of clean and inexhaustible energy.
The Valladolid project was started after Michelin showed an interest in developing its renewable energy capacity as a way of reducing fossil fuel consumption and contributing to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
€11 million has been invested in the PV array, which has a surface area of approximately 44,000 square meters of panels, providing 2MW of power, which represents 10% of the total energy demand of the factory. The array comprises a total of 30,240 cadmium telluride photovoltaic modules, and 160 inverters on the roofs of the warehouses and manufacturing facilities.
The facility will have an annual electricity output of 3 GWh and will prevent the emission into the atmosphere of 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the emissions of 6,000 passenger cars and the consumption of 800 homes, the company said.
