We hear about green energy solutions in the tech industry quite often. Many companies are trying to move to more environment-friendly power sources while others are trying to trim down their energy consumption. Walgreens, aretail giant, has now revealed plans of building the world’s first ever super-green, self-powered, net zero energy retail store.
Currently, an existing Walgreens store, situated right at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Keeney Street, Evanston, Illinois, is being demolished. Walgreens plans to build the new super-green store at the very same place. The retail giant has plans of relying on multiple environment-friendly technologies to accomplish this.
For instance, the power required for the facility will be gathered from solar panels and wind turbines. Heat needs will be satiated with the help of geothermal energy. And finally, the company will be cutting down substantially on the store’s power consumption by lighting it up with LEDs and adopting daylight harvesting practice.
Finally, the refrigerators that will be used at the store are some kind of ‘ultra-high-efficiency’ machines. What is most interesting is that according to engineering estimates, this facility may be able to produce even more power than it would actually consume, probably making it the first commercial entity of its nature.
According to the vice president of facilities development at Walgreens, Thomas Connolly, “We are investing in developing a net-zero store so we can learn the best way to bring these features to our other stores. Because we operate 8,000 stores, we believe our pursuit of green technology can have a significant positive impact on the nation’s environment.”
We fervently hope and wish that this sets the example for other retail chains and commercial entities to improve their energy profiles. Even a token sum of surplus power production generated by thousands of entities such as Walgreens, and added to the national grid, can be hugely beneficial in the long-term.
Courtesy: HotHardware
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