For over 40 years, Earth Day – April 22^nd – has inspired individuals and organizations to consider their environmental impact and commit to sustainability actions.   

The same GPS technology that increasingly triangulates our lives is helping scientists study the pronghorn antelope that roam the Carrizo Plain near the 3,500-acre Topaz Solar Farms project, currently under construction in San Luis Obispo County, Calif.

Local municipal utilities can play an important role in increasing solar PV’s share in the electricity mix. In Germany, local utilities are proving to be the engine behind the energy transition towards renewables.

First Solar’s technical article titled “Life Cycle Water Usage in CdTe Photovoltaics” has been published in the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, a leading international scientific journal. The paper was written by First Solar’s Parikhit Sinha and Amy Meader along with SmartGreenScan’s Mariska de Wild-Scholten.  The article documents First Solar’s water footprint over the life cycle of a cadmium telluride photovoltaics (CdTe PV) installation.  While energy security and climate change have been important drivers for renewable energy adoption, water security provides an additional driver.  For example in the United States, thermoelectric power plants have recently accounted for over 40% of total freshwater withdrawals from all sectors, even more than for agriculture.  This energy-water nexus associated with traditional energy sources can be a potential concern, particularly in water-stressed regions.  Because solar PV uses little to no water during operation, it provides a promising path forward for addressing the energy-water nexus.

First Solar is helping to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by offering an economically viable alternative to fossil fuels.  With over 6 GW installed worldwide, First Solar has displaced around 4 million tons of CO₂e emissions, the equivalent of powering approximately 3 million homes per year, based on world averages.  For First Solar, providing a clean energy solution is not enough; we also strive to manage the carbon impacts resulting from our own operations and activities.

“Sustainability” – everyone hears about it – but do we really know what it is? It is a complex term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on earth – from ecological preservation movements to urban development practices and leading edge economic theory. The concept has also risen as a hot topic for global industry, and the renewable energy market in particular. How do large companies find the balance between environmental responsibility and strong economic performance, while at the same time being responsible employers and ethical partners?

First Solar works hard to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental impacts from its solar power projects, in line with its mission to generate energy in a sustainable way. Case in point: the 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farms project that the company is building in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. for MidAmerican Solar. First Solar developers collaborated with public resource agencies and with national and local environmental organizations on a plan that will preserve in perpetuity 22,000 acres of the Carrizo Plain as habitat for species such as the San Joaquin kit fox, pronghorn antelope and tule elk.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD 2012) –known as the Rio +20 Earth Summit- drew to a close and world leaders failed to produce ambitious commitments on sustainable growth. Although hopes were not very high before the start of the negotiations, it is still regrettable that no considerable progress was made with regard to measures promoting a transition to a low carbon and renewable energy economy.