Project Amp will be largest rooftop solar project in US history

An effort known as Project Amp aims to install solar panels on industrial buildings across the US and feed the electricity generated into the nation’s power grid.

The project, which has just received a conditional $1.4 billion loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DOE), would be the largest rooftop solar project in US history and could generate up to 733 megawatts of energy — nearly as much power as that generated by all the photovoltaics installed in the US in 2010.

Project Amp is also expected to create at least 1,000 jobs over a four-year period.

“This unprecedented solar project will not only produce clean, renewable energy to power the grid in states across the country, but it will help us meet the SunShot goal of achieving cost competitive solar power with other forms of energy by the end of the decade,” said US Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

The DOE SunShot initiative aims to reduce the cost of solar power by about 75 percent by 2020.

Project Amp aims to deploy solar panels on 750 existing rooftops owned and managed by industrial real-estate firm Prologis. NRG Energy is the lead investor for the first phase of the project, which includes a 15.4-megawatt installation in Southern California.  Additional installations will be built in up to 28 states and the District of Columbia.

The initiative is expected to produce up to one million megawatt-hours annually, enough to power more than 88,000 homes. The DOE loan application for the project was submitted b Bank of America Merrill Lynch under the Financial Institution Partnership Program.

Created in 2009, Prologis Renewable Energy group has solar projects with more than 60 megawatts of capacity installed or under construction on 43 buildings throughout France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the US.