Big-Box Retail and Shopping Mall Solar: From the Possible to the Probable to the Inevitable

Shopping malls and similar venues present attractive, big-time opportunities as potential sites for grid-connected solar power, energy storage and intelligent, highly energy-efficient facilities management. A growing, international host of big-box retail, shopping mall owners, architects and building-integrated solar (BIPV) and energy management specialists are joining forces so as to capitalize on the benefits.

Asked about market growth and why every big-box retailer and mall rooftops and parking lots aren’t covered with solar-plus-storage and converted into distributed, grid-connected, emissions-free power plants, Drew TorbinSolar Magazine Interviewee Avatar, co-founder and CEO of U.S.-based Black Bear Energy had this to say: “The scale is ramping up.”...
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RSK: As technology in this field grows it will become inevitable as the author says. It is just a tough sell at the moment in the northern climes where solar doesn`t have as great an impact and wind may be more of an option. Hard to say right now.