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Big-box stores and sprawling solar panel arrays have a lot in common.
Both are often the targets of wrath from community members who view them as unseemly and unwelcome blights on the landscape.
But environmental groups say big-box businesses and solar energy can — and should — align in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
The flat, open, sun-exposed roofs of oversized retail and grocery stores, supercenters and malls are ready-made sites for solar energy generation, according to a new report from the Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center and the Frontier Group.
Minnesota-based Target has installed solar panels on 542 stores nationwide, including the location on University Parkway in Winston-Salem. Rooftop panels there produce 324 kilowatts of electricity, the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association says.
If all of North Carolina’s nearly 3,700 large retail structures were equipped with rooftop solar arrays, they would generate enough energy to power more than 300,000 average American homes a year, the report found.
The panels also would generate enough electricity to cover half of the stores’ energy needs. Not only would that save the stores’ money (after they recover the cost of buying and installing the panels), but it also would reduce demand on the overall power grid.
A full mobilization of big-box solar panel also would reduce the state’s carbon emissions by 2,119 metric tons per year, the report found.
And, in most cases, the arrays would be hidden from public view while also occupying unused, already-impervious surfaces.
North Carolina’s potential big-box solar generation ranked eighth nationally among all states, according to the report.
“Right now, thousands of store roofs and parking lots have no solar panels installed,” said Krista Early of the Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center. “We’re missing out on a great opportunity to produce clean, renewable energy right here in North Carolina. That needs to change.”
At least two stores in Winston-Salem (Target on University Parkway and Kohl’s on Hanes Boulevard) and one in Greensboro (Aldi Food on New Garden Road) have already installed rooftop arrays. Both companies say the panels are one element in overarching goals to reduce their carbon footprints.
“Kohl’s is committed to incorporating climate emissions reduction efforts in the way we do business to help build better futures for families,” said Katie Boscoe, Kohl’s Southeast territory manager. “Our solar energy technology continues to evolve, resulting in not only renewable energy but more efficient energy.”
Nationally, the Wisconsin-based department store chain has set corporate goals of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in half, compared to 2014 levels, by 2025. Through wind and solar installations, the company says it now produces renewable energy in 164 locations.
A Kohl’s store in Burlington also is equipped with roof panels.
Minnesota-based Target has installed solar panels on 542 stores nationwide, spokesman Shane Kitzman said. The company has pledged to use renewable energy for all of its operations.
The panels at University Parkway Target produce more than 700,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to power 56 homes for a year.
The Hanes Mall Kohl’s generates more than 600,000 kilowatt-hours per year, which could cover the electricity needs of 48 homes annually.
The report singles out Target and Walmart as leaders nationally in solar power generation.
Like many aspects of renewable energy, enlisting empty rooftops for solar power collection is an example of embracing the obvious, advocates say.
“Using North Carolina’s big-box stores to increase solar energy production is a no brainer,” said Early. “Not only is expanding solar electricity generation capacity good for the environment and the fight against climate change, but it also benefits North Carolina’s citizens, businesses and our electric grid.
Nationally, there are more than 100,000 big-box retail facilities with a total of almost 7.2 billion square feet of rooftop, according to the report.
The big-box retail stores, large grocery stores and malls considered in the national report account for approximately 4.5% of all electricity use in the United States.
Putting solar panels on all of them could power almost 8 million homes and cut the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of what 11.3 million gas-powered vehicles produce annually.
The solar energy generation potential of big box-stores is equivalent to almost 65% of all the electricity generated by solar in the U.S. in 2020, the report says.
The Kohl’s on Hanes Mall Boulevard is one of the Wisconsin-based company’s 164 stores nationally that produce renewable energy through solar or wind installations.
Installing renewable energy-capturing equipment on vast, otherwise unused rooftops also is an exercise in efficiency, noted Lindey Hallock, North Carolina-based Southeast senior regional director of the advocacy organization Vote Solar.
“Understanding how we can use existing resources and existing physical landscape that we’ve built to help us move to a cleaner energy grid is a very important topic and something that we don’t often think about,” she said.
Looking at an empty roof like a blank canvas could be a start.
John Deem covers climate change and the environment in the Triad and Northwest North Carolina. His work is funded by a grant from the 1Earth Fund and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.
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Minnesota-based Target has installed solar panels on 542 stores nationwide, including the location on University Parkway in Winston-Salem. Rooftop panels there produce 324 kilowatts of electricity, the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association says.
The Kohl’s on Hanes Mall Boulevard is one of the Wisconsin-based company’s 164 stores nationally that produce renewable energy through solar or wind installations.
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