The Heat is On: GM Builds Its Largest Solar Installation in Western Hemisphere

We’re close to completing a 2.2 megawatt ground-mounted solar array at our Lordstown Complex in Ohio. When finished, this facility will not only be home to the Chevrolet Cruze, but also our largest solar installation in the Western Hemisphere.

Our GM Toledo Transmission facility just a few hours away shines just as brightly. At 1.8 megawatts, its rooftop solar array is currently the biggest rooftop array in the state.

But just how big is our use of solar in Lordstown & Toledo? Below we break down the numbers.

375,000

Chevrolet Volts that could be fully charged by the energy generated from Lordstown’s array in one day.

29,500

Solar panels make up the two arrays.

3,624 tons

The equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emissions avoided in one year by using these two arrays. That’s comparable to taking nearly 800 passenger vehicles off the road, or the amount of carbon 92,000 tree seedlings grown for 10 years would pull from the air.

355,000

Total square footage of both the Lordstown & Toledo solar arrays.

GM remains one of the top 25 corporate users of solar power in the United States, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. We even use solar energy to power some of our electric vehicle charging stations.

But what about the other side of the world? Our solar performance is even stronger. We host two of the five world’s largest arrays, including a nearly 12 megawatt array on top of our Zaragoza, Spain facility and 10 megawatts at our Russelsheim, Germany facility.

Globally, our solar footprint totals 43 megawatts. With solar energy usage like that, we might as well be walking on the sun.