ProLogis (NYSE: PLD), a leading global provider of distribution facilities, announced Tuesday it has formed a Global Renewable Energy Group that will primarily focus on developing rooftop solar projects on the company’s facilities worldwide.
"Even through the challenges of the global recession we are finding more ways to create additional value from existing assets," said Walt Rakowich, CEO at ProLogis.
In addition, ProLogis announced a new, 4.8-megawatt (MW) solar project to be installed on eight of its rooftops at ProLogis Park Sant Boi in Barcelona and ProLogis Park Alcala in Madrid, Spain.
ProLogis completed its first solar installation in France in 2005, and now has solar installations on 20 buildings covering 7.2 million square feet (669,000 square meters) of roof space.
"Upon completion of the new project in Spain, we will have more than 11 MW of solar installations on our rooftops, which is enough energy to power more than 1,100 homes per year," said Jack Rizzo, chief sustainability officer for ProLogis.
ProLogis has signed a lease agreement with Recurrent Energy, a distributed power company and a leading provider of solar energy, for two million square feet (180,000 square meters) of roof space in Spain. Recurrent Energy, the owner and operator of the system, will use the roof space to host the 4.8-MW solar installation, and will sell the energy produced to the local utility company through a feed-in tariff. ProLogis will provide construction management services in addition to receiving roof rental fees. Construction is expected to commence in October 2009.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We have more than 450 million square feet (42 million square meters) of roof space worldwide, all of which is large, flat, unobstructed and ready to be permitted," said Drew Torbin, director of global renewable energy for ProLogis. "Even with this new installation, we are only utilizing less than 2% of this available roof space, leaving a lot of room for us to grow this new business."
Located in San Francisco, Recurrent Energy has a pipeline of over 500MW of distributed-scale solar projects in development across North America and Europe. For more information on Recurrent Energy and distributed solar power, visit www.recurrentenergy.com.
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