Volkswagen brand has inaugurated its largest solar installation worldwide at its Chattanoaga plant in the United States. Volkswagen 's Chattanogo solar park has an installed power of 9.5 megawatts and is the largest installation operated by a car manufacturer in the United States. This energy compatible energy will be used for the production of Passat .
The planned production of the nearly 33,600 solar panels installed in an area of 13 hectares around the plant is 13,100 megawatts/hour per year. This energy will be used directly for production, which will mean that solar energy will supply 12.5% of the electricity required during the operation of the plant at its maximum capacity and will cover 100% of the demand when the plant is not in production.
The project partners are the Californian subsidiary of Phoenix Solar AG, based in Sulzemoos, near Munich, and Silicon Ranch, based in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Chattanoga plant has a workforce of more than 3,000 workers, which produce the new Volkswagen Passat specially developed for the North American market. As a result of extremely ecological production in this plant, Volkswagen in Chattanoga has already received several awards. In December 2011, Volkswagen was the first automobile manufacturer in receiving the LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) of Platinum.
The company also works with an environmental management system according to ISO 14001 and an energy management system according to ISO 50001.
