November 23, 2014 – GOING SOLAR: From our fourth-floor balcony at the back of SM City North I have been watching and photographing workers build additional floors to the five-level parking building, wondering if SM would install rooftop solar power panels.

The answer, I’ve found out, is Yes. In fact, the good news is that SM is set to inaugurate tomorrow its 1.3-megawatt solar power facility using 5,760 solar panels and 60 inverters laid out on more than 12,000 square meters of the roof of its parking building.

That makes our neighbor SM City North the world’s biggest solar-powered mall. (Last Sept. 20, btw, SM Prime Holdings also launched a 700-kw solar project at its Central Mall Biñan.)

We neighbors can now expect to have less of the noise and smoke of its diesel-fed generators that are turned on during brownouts. The new solar facility, sparkling like a glassy deck of a mini aircraft carrier, would offset around 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide emission.

Giant retailer SM’s energizing its malls with its own solar-generated power will help ease the demand on the composite power running through the national grid, and stabilize supply.

*      *      *

SUN-LIT WAY: It has been asked why this sun-drenched country does not tap solar power in a big way and reduce its deep dependence on fossil fuel in generating clean, sustainable and inexpensive electricity.

The usual answers we get are: (1) Startup expense for solar power is prohibitively high; (2) Competing power producers, especially those using crude, are actively lobbying against solar power, and (3) Government power planners and managers are inept, if not corrupt.

We won’t comment on items (2) and (3), but SM Prime’s embracing solar power for its malls answers item (1) that says solar power is too costly, therefore not practical or feasible. SM is showing the way to sun-lit valleys of viable and socially-responsive power generation.

SM Prime built last year a 1.1-megawatt solar power project in its Xiamen mall, its first in mainland China. It involved installing 3,740 solar panels on the roof of SM City Xiamen Phase 1 and Phase 2 calling for an investment of 13.2 million renminbi (RMB) or $2 million.

Of the SM North project, SM Prime president Hans T. Sy said: “We have always been committed to reduce greenhouse emissions and maximize energy efficiency in our malls. This is just one of many renewable projects we have been doing in our developments and we will continue finding ways of making our operations more environmentally sound and sustainable.”