While we'd gladly spend the day drinking beer outside a rented RV to watch a solar car covered in ads for Home Depot and Coors Light taking turns at a buck fifty, diehards need not worry: it's only the track that's gone solar.
Less than a year after the groundbreaking ceremonyfor a 25-acre solar array, the 3 megawatt ground-mount photovoltaic solar energy system at Pocono Raceway is online and tied into the grid, giving up enough juice for the whole racetrack and 1,000 nearby homes. In true NASCAR fashion, they went big with a solar installation the folks at Pocono say you can see from space.
With 40,000 photovoltaic modules installed by enXco in a former parking lot adjacent to the 2.5 mile track, the folks at Pocono Raceway claim their track is the world's largest solar-powered sports facility. We suspect the ancient Greeks might disagree -- there certainly weren't any coal-fired power plants at the Olympics back in the year 776 B.C.
NASCAR estimates that the solar array will produce 72 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy over the next 20 years, enough to offset more than 3,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
That's some serious green cred, but don't expect to see Jeff Gordon dropping DuPont sponsorship for Burt's Bees any time soon. The solar array was originally a response to deregulation of the local power industry -- which track officials estimate would've raised the track's electric bill by 40%.
They got a sweet deal. Pocono now has a sustainable source of energy that they can re-sell at a profit to local utilities once the bills on the installation (estimated at $17 million) are paid.
Photo: NASCAR
