IKEA to install 5 MW-e of solar PV panels in eastern U.S.

The Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA plans to install 22,000 solar photovoltaic panels, enough to generate 5 megawatts of electricity (enough to power over 500 households) at several of its stores as well as its U.S. headquarters. The beneficiary sites include near Cincinnati, Ohio, Baltimore, Maryland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Just up the road from Beyond Nuclear's office, in College Park, Maryland, the local IKEA store will also install solar PV. Beyond Nuclear and its environmental allies in northwest Ohio have argued that solar PV -- in combination with energy storage technologies such as compressed air -- could replace the 908 MW of electricity generated by the dangerous Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo. Solar PV panel materials inventer, Dr. Al Compaan, an emeritus professor of Physics, and former head of the department, at the University of Toledo, serves as the environmental coalition's expert witness. IKEA's plan to install solar PV in Cincinnati bolsters our argument that solar PV could replace Davis-Besse in Ohio.