CARBON DISPLACEMENT

As our need for electricity continues to grow, so too does our ability to generate harmful emissions from the traditional fossil fuel sources we currently utilize. Displacing, and eventually eliminating these emissions presents a daunting challenge for future generations. By developing and harnessing clean, renewable sources of electricity today, we can change the way the world is powered.

Solar energy offers the highest global potential for electricity generation among renewable energy sources1 for meeting this challenge, and is therefore an important technology for both, climate change mitigation, and the development of a low carbon economy.

The counter application depicted on this page, and other pages of the First Solar website, illustrates an important environmental benefit of First Solar module technology by providing cumulative carbon displacement information since the company began commercial production. The purpose is to communicate carbon displacement from solar deployment in the form of common equivalent measures, including homes powered, cars removed, and trees planted, demonstrating the positive environmental impacts of solar energy. First Solar has prepared a more in-depth technical report that elaborates on the assumptions and methodology behind the worldwide averages supporting displaced CO2 emissions.		Homes CO2 Cars Trees - - - - - - - - Homes Powered   Based on worldwide averages - - - - - - - - Displaced CO2 Emissions (Metric Tons) Based on worldwide averages - - - - - - - - Equivalent Cars Removed   Based on worldwide averages - - - - - - - - Equivalent Trees Planted   Based on worldwide averages

	Over 5GW of Solar Modules Manufactured
	Since the start of commercial operations, First Solar has manufactured approximately 5GW of—approximately 66 million—solar modules. Using world average assumptions, the deployment of each gigawatt of First Solar modules results in the following:
	Enough electricity to power approximately half a million world average households per year Displacement of over 650,000 metric tons of CO2e per year—which is the equivalent of removing over 130,000 world average cars from the road per year, or planting approximately 17 million trees per year

¹ Edenhofer, O., et al., 2011: Summary for Policy Makers. In IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA.