California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently dedicated a 2 megawatt solar power system at Applied Materials' campus in Sunnyvale, California. Applied Materials announced the plan in March, 2007.
The company is touting the solar system as one of the largest corporate solar power installations in the U.S. They system incorporates more than 7,000 wafer-based solar panels made by SunPower Corp. using Applied’s Baccini Cell Systems, and is capable of generating approximately 2 megawatts of power annually.
Applied Materials says the parking lot-mounted system tracks the sun to increase the efficiency of the panels while also serving as shade for several hundred employee cars.
The company recently made it into Plenty Magazine's Plenty 20 list for repurposing its nanomanufacturing technology to create the largest thin-film solar cells in the world.
In August, the company signed a five-year service contract with Green Energy Technology to support the company's Applied SunFab Thin Film Line for solar module manufacturing.
