Green Options

An Italian company has announced plans to install the world’s largest rooftop solar photovoltaic plant, with an energy capacity equivalent to the power needs of 5,000 households.

Solon SE will establish the facility at its Padua warehouse and truck-loading complex, generating an output of up to 15 megawatts when the sun is at its brightest.

Web hosting company 1&1 has revealed plans to convert a former nuclear waste site into a huge datacenter, powered entirely by renewable energy.

The company, which manages a total of more than 10 million domain names, plans to squeeze 100,000 servers into the 10,000 sq metre facility in Hanau, Germany.

Utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has confirmed plans to build a massive 909 MW wind farm in Oregon. When completed, the facility will be one of the largest fully permitted wind power sites anywhere in the world.

The installation will be located in Morrow and Gilliam counties in North-Central Oregon, and will consist of 303 3MW wind turbines spread across a 30-mile radius. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, will generate around two billion kWh of energy, roughly 10 per cent of SCE’s total alternative energy portfolio.

Last week, E.ON Climate and Renewables officially opened its massive new wind farm in Roscoe, Texas. The site is now capable of generating an impressive 335.5 MW of electricity, a figure set to rise to 781.5 MW when the farm is completed in mid-2009.

When finished, the Roscoe site will become one of the world’s largest wind farms, boasting a total of 627 wind turbines capable of powering more than 250,000 of the state’s homes.