In June 2009, construction started on a 3.6 MW solar energy plant at aerospace giant Aerojet’s Sacramento location. In November 2009, Aerojet (a GenCorp Group company, NYSE: GY) and solar installer Solar Power, Inc. (OTCBB: SOPW) announced they were dreaming big: they were commissioning a 2.4 MW expansion to the system, which would expand it to 6 MW and make it the largest industrial solar panel installation in California–and one of the largest in the country.
Today, Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq: AEIS) announced that its Solaron inverters had been selected for the expansion, indicating that the Sacramento solar installation is on track for its target completion date in April 2010. The total 6 MW array will cover more than 40 acres of land, have 22 single-axis tracking arrays, use 229,344 of Solar Power’s 205 watt solar panels, and provide 10 percent of Aerojet’s power consumption in addition to providing clean solar energy to local utility SMUD.
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