Thai factory will have world’s largest rooftop solar array

Thailand is setting the pace on the road to clean energy as a tire factory Sumitomo Rubber is building the world’s largest rooftop solar array, since the company strives to make its facility just east of Bangkok 100 percent sustainable.
The rooftop solar array will be equal in size to 10 American football fields, according to electrek, an American website dedicated to electric transportation and sustainable energy. It will consist of approximately 40,000 solar panels and cover an area of 1,076,391 square feet.
The array is scheduled to become operational in January 2025 and will have a total output of about 22 megawatts. It will also be equipped with a gas cogeneration system that will consist of two 6.6 megawatt boilers powered by renewable energy.
Thailand is the leader in Southeast Asia in energy generated by solar and wind technologies. And Thai power producers have been expanding aggressively around Asia and also into Europe. B.Grimm, a Thai small power producer, recently began investing in renewable energy facilities in Europe with plans to buy or build more.
It is all part of the Thai private sector’s drive to become more sustainable – 37 Thai companies were recently named to the S&P Global Sustainability Index, with 12 in the gold class. In the public sector, Thailand’s government has made an ambitious commitment to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030, reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and net zero by 2065.
Sumitomo Rubber is the fifth-largest tire manufacturer in the world, and the company said that it is aiming to make its factory 100 percent sustainable. The factory makes tires for the European market.
Photo courtesy of https://electrek.co/2023/03/22/worlds-largest-rooftop-solar-array/