Budweiser Solar Operated Cooling Facility Continues to Impress Environmentalists

Antioch, CA - A short drive away from Antioch’s Highway 4 main transportation corridor and you will find yourself at The Markstein Sales Company located at Drive in Way, Antioch, CA. The company made big news this last May when they announced their Budweiser cold beer storage facility was going solar. Well, it’s been over 5 months now and the system is still performing remarkably well.

The conceptual design for the roof installed solar panels was drafted and completed by San Francisco’s Perpetual Power, LLC. The installed solar panels are producing approximately 59 – 62% of the 111,005 sq. ft. building’s energy. The average yearly savings for the plant are estimated to be over $100,000. That’s a lot of kilowatts! Even in the commercial Brentwood Real Estate market there really isn’t anything that can generate this much energy.

Now, before you climb on top of your own home’s roof and install panels, remember that Perpetual Power, LLC used a proprietary mounting system called ‘Oasis’. The solar installation consists of 2,240 185-watt peak (Wp) Mitsubishi Electric polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) modules, which are made with One-Hundred percent lead-free solder.

Eco friendly experts commented that a cold storage unit is the perfect type of business that can immediately benefit from advances in solar technology. Perpetual Power, LLC commented that other industries that recieve substantial profits from going solar include the agricultural industry.

Antioch is the perfect location for solar powered business’. Antioch enjoys hot, sometimes almost desert like, temperatures that can really fire up solar panels. The area is no stranger to alternative power technology. A quick look across the Antioch Delta and you can see a plethora of windmills generating clean wind power.

With the global warming debate heating up there has been a big push for reducing our carbon footprint. Kenneth R. Turnage II General Contractor, Inc., a local Antioch homebuilder has made extensive efforts to mark his company as ‘green friendly’.

It’s really not surprising that there has been recent buzz about going green in Antioch. The City of Antioch released a green house emissions study in 2005 that projected ‘Antioch’s total emissions will increase by approx. 75,000 metric tons of Greenhouse gasses by 2020!’ Considering Antioch’s fragile Delta habitat something must change if survival is desired.

The now solar panel operated Budweiser facility is a perfect example of innovation meeting community concern.

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