FedEx Express to build largest solar-powered facility outside U.S

FedEx Express to build largest solar-powered facility outside U.S FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp., began construction this week on its largest solar-powered facility, and its first outside the United States, at the Cologne/Bonn airport in Germany.
   The Cologne hub, which will serve as the company’s new 50,000-square-meter Central and Eastern European gateway, will have a 1.4-megawatt solar power system, once fully built in 2010. The system will produce an estimated 1.3 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, or enough to meet the annual consumption of 370 households.
   Solar panels, fitted to the roof of the new ramp and sort facilities, will cover a total surface area of 16,000 square meters.
   “The solar energy installation at the Cologne hub will nearly double FedEx’s use of on-site solar energy,” said Mitch Jackson, director of environmental affairs and sustainability, in a statement.
   In August 2005, FedEx completed the installation on a solar-electric system at its regional hub in Oakland, then California’s largest solar rooftop system. In its first three years, FedEx has provided more than 3 million kilowatt hours of clean energy. The system can provide about 20 percent of the facility’s total electricity needs and can meet 80 percent of its peak load demand, FedEx said.
   Recently, FedEx Freight completed the installation of solar-electric systems, supplied by BP Solar, at facilities in Whittier and Fontana, Calif. The three California systems together generate 1.5 megawatts of power each year.
   In Europe, FedEx’s use of on-site renewable energy expands beyond solar. In Geneva, a FedEx station uses a system of pipes running deep into the ground to warm the building’s air in winter and cool it in summer. The system reduces the facility’s dependence on gas for heating or freon for cooling, and therefore requires less energy to operate, the company said.
   For more detail about other renewable energy systems used at cargo terminals, read the June American Shipper, pages 90-91.