Penske Truck Leasing lights up new solar-powered facility initiative

Penske Truck Leasing is launching a new solar-powered initiative aimed at boosting efficiency, reducing energy costs, and reducing emissions at select truck leasing, truck rental, and truck maintenance locations in the U.S. with the installation and activation of its first-ever rooftop solar-powered systems.

The company's new facility in Channahon, Illinois, is now fully operational and is predominantly powered by an onsite photovoltaic solar system that is expected to generate roughly 80% of the building's energy needs at 200 KW capacity. Any remaining required energy will be supplied by the local utility provider.

A Grand Rapids, Michigan, location will be active in the coming months, and Penske's Linden, New Jersey, location is expected to go online in 2025. The new facilities incorporating solar systems in Channahon, Grand Rapids, and Linden are part of the company's LEED building program.

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Under a power purchase agreement with Sunrock Distributed Generation, seven additional Penske facilities in California are expected to be retrofitted with new PV solar systems in the next year. These are expected to yield roughly 600 KW of renewable energy across all locations. The facilities are located in Fresno, Hayward, La Mirada, National City, Riverside, San Diego, and San Leandro.

Penske is collaborating with San Francisco-based ForeFront Power as its lead project consultant on this solar initiative.

"Our solar program is an important piece of our renewable energy strategy, and ForeFront Power continues to be an outstanding partner in helping us bring these projects to fruition," Drew Cullen, SVP of fuels and facility services at Penske, said. "These investments will allow us to directly generate our own renewable energy to power our locations and continue to support our customers with sustainable solutions."