Canadian based energy company Etrion Corporation and and SunPower Corp. recently announced an agreement to build four solar farms, totaling four megawatts, in the Puglia region of southern Italy.
SunPower will design and construct the plants, and provide operations and maintenance services. In addition to the farm being power by SunPower solar panels, the company will also be installing proprietary SunPower Tracker technology at the Italian sites. The tracking system follows the sun during the day and delivers up to 25 percent more energy than fixed panels, meaning fewer solar panels need to be used.
Construction of the first of the four solar farm projects should begin by the end of this month.
Sunpower also recently announced the completion of a 1-megawatt rooftop solar power system on three buildings at Agilent’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Between the latest installation and a previous one carried out by Sunpower for the company, Agilent expects to save USD $3.5 million in energy costs in the first 10 years of operation.
Agilent’s system in Santa Clara is expected to displace more than 22,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years; equivalent to the emissions displaced from removing more than 4,200 cars from California’s highways.
SunPower solar panels generate up to 50 percent more power than conventional solar technologies and have an aesthetically pleasing all-black appearance. SunPower has more than 500 megawatts of solar farms installed or under contract around the world and also supplies solar panels for the Australian off grid and residential solar power market.
