In an effort to cut emissions beyond its long history of transportation-related initiatives, Penske Truck Leasing recently flipped the switch on its new state-of-the-art facility in Channahon, Illinois, which is primarily powered by an onsite photovoltaic (PV) solar system.
Expected to generate roughly 80% of the building’s energy needs at 200 KW capacity, this facility is the first step in Penske’s new solar-powered initiative. The company plans to boost efficiency, minimize energy costs, and reduce emissions at select truck leasing, truck rental, and truck maintenance locations in the U.S. with the installation of these rooftop solar-powered systems.
“At Penske, we focus on impactful and tangible efforts to decarbonize our operational footprint, which helps further the sustainability efforts of our partners and customers within our value chain,” said Ivet Taneva, vice president of environmental affairs, Penske Transportation Solutions. “Investing in solar has considerable economic impacts for our operations as well as the environmental benefits of further reducing emissions related to electricity use.”
This investment is continuing at the company’s Grand Rapids, Michigan, location, which will be active in the coming months, and Penske’s Linden, New Jersey, location, which is expected to go online next year. The trio of solar installations are part of the Penske’s LEED building program.
The program, according to Taneva, focuses on facility Scope 2 reduction only, and while it furthers the company’s overall decarbonization efforts, it is specific to offsetting emissions for our truck leasing locations.
“Projects like these will have an impact in our combined Scope 1&2 emissions, which includes the vehicles. The plan is to grow the program and drive carbon intensity down for the business overall,” added Taneva.
The program will also move to the Golden State. Working with Sunrock Distributed Generation and ForeFront Power, seven additional Penske facilities in California are expected to be retrofitted with new PV solar systems in the next year, yielding roughly 600 KW of renewable energy across locations in Fresno, Hayward, La Mirada, National City, Riverside, San Diego, and San Leandro.
On average, four solar panel-powered Penske Truck Leasing facilities will generate an estimated 1-million-kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy annually and will result in an emissions avoidance of 442 metric tons (MT) CO2e, which is equal to powering nearly 90 homes for one year.
