It is pleasing to hear about some supermarkets here in the UK making progress towards reducing their carbon emissions by utilising renewable energy. Last year, we made reference to Sainsbury’s who has had a considerable number of their stores fitted with solar panels making them a major user.
Morrisons are installing more solar panels on some of their buildings
(image credit: Gene Hunt)
You may be interested to read that Morrisons supermarket has entered into an agreement with GMI Energy who will install solar panels on the roofs of its new stores plus its distributions centres. This contract involves the installation of in excess of 4.5MW of solar power capacity. They will be installing solar panels for the supermarket chain in the Midlands, Wales and Scotland.
Morrisons already has solar panels in place on a distribution centre in Bridgewater that generates a huge amount of capacity. Apparently, the design required some complex structural engineering to take into account loads. Other solar photovoltaic panel installations have been carried out in Gloucester, Isle of Sheppey, Littlehampton and Blyth.
Every new Morrisons store also has LED lighting installed, heating of the store can be through heat reclamation and the refrigeration process helps provide hot water. All these factors will assist the company in reducing its carbon emissions.
GMI Energy has installed sophisticated hardware that is capable of permitting Morrisons to monitor the electricity that it produces every hour.
Obviously, supermarkets have a huge capacity to be able to install solar panels on their roofs so it will be interesting to see if supermarket chains make increased use of this renewable form of energy in the next few years. If they do, it will go some way towards helping the UK achieve its carbon emission and renewable energy targets. Of course, it would be a big help if an increased number of smaller, independent stores were to have solar panels installed.
