Tesla Installing World’s Largest Solar Rooftop on Nevada Gigafactory
Tesla is building a massive rooftop solar array on top of its Gigafactory 1 (GF1) outside Sparks, Nevada. Once finished, the 70-megawatt system will be the largest in the world by far. The current record-holder is the comparatively shrimpy 11.5-megawatt array in India that can power 8,000 homes.
Read the entire article at EcoWatch.
The Gigafactory is part of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s vision to fast-track a cleaner, more sustainable future. He previously announced intentions to power the Nevada building without fossil fuels, relying instead on renewable energy and batteries.
GF1 is an all-electric factory with no fossil fuels (natural gas or petroleum) directly consumed. It will be using 100 percent sustainable energy through a combination of a 70 megawatt solar rooftop array and solar ground installations. The solar rooftop array is ~7x larger than the largest rooftop solar system installed today.
The Gigafactory 1 is being built in phases so Tesla and its partners can manufacture products while the building continues to expand. It officially kicked off the mass production of lithium-ion battery cells in January 2017.
Upon completion, the Gigafactory stands to claim the title of world’s largest building by footprint. Tesla touts that its current structure already has a footprint of 1.9 million square feet, which houses 4.9 million square feet of operational space across several floors.
Once fully built, the Gigafactory will produce 35 GWh/year of lithium-ion battery cells annually, which is “nearly as much as the rest of the entire world’s battery production combined.”
