Kohl's Going Solar
Evidence of Natural Capitalism is alive and well today.
Kohl's Department Stores, a Milwaukee-area company, is installing solar cells on top of 75% of its California stores. With a contract through SunEdison LLC, it appears Kohl's will essentially rent their roofs to SunEdison who will install the solar cells at no charge and sell the power back to Kohl's and to the local power companies.
This is huge. So huge that it's the largest solar cell installation in North America history.
Kohl's is already looking at putting solar cells in six other states, including Wisconsin.
It doesn't look like they expect the investment to pay off immediately, but they're paying a locked-in rate which they think will make the investment a huge success in the future (similar to the benefits Southwest Airlines is seeing from their fuel contracts).
From a business perspective this was a good move from two different angles. The first is the public goodwill and image boost associated with going to a renewable power source, this puts Kohl's in a tier above other "big box" retailers. Second, it's a great way to lock-in a profit boost down the road when your competitors are presumably all going to be having to pay more for power. Southwest did this and beat out all the other airlines, Kohl's takes it to another level with going renewable.
The only real downside for this is that everyone else could copy Kohl's, eliminate Kohl's future price advantage, and they're relegated to having to go down in history as the company that reinvented retail and changed community perception of big retail.
It's great to see Wisconsin companies leading the way on green energy.
Come on Wal-Mart, get in the game.
Kohl's Department Stores, a Milwaukee-area company, is installing solar cells on top of 75% of its California stores. With a contract through SunEdison LLC, it appears Kohl's will essentially rent their roofs to SunEdison who will install the solar cells at no charge and sell the power back to Kohl's and to the local power companies.
This is huge. So huge that it's the largest solar cell installation in North America history.
Kohl's is already looking at putting solar cells in six other states, including Wisconsin.
It doesn't look like they expect the investment to pay off immediately, but they're paying a locked-in rate which they think will make the investment a huge success in the future (similar to the benefits Southwest Airlines is seeing from their fuel contracts).
From a business perspective this was a good move from two different angles. The first is the public goodwill and image boost associated with going to a renewable power source, this puts Kohl's in a tier above other "big box" retailers. Second, it's a great way to lock-in a profit boost down the road when your competitors are presumably all going to be having to pay more for power. Southwest did this and beat out all the other airlines, Kohl's takes it to another level with going renewable.
The only real downside for this is that everyone else could copy Kohl's, eliminate Kohl's future price advantage, and they're relegated to having to go down in history as the company that reinvented retail and changed community perception of big retail.
It's great to see Wisconsin companies leading the way on green energy.
Come on Wal-Mart, get in the game.
1 Comments:
At April 30, 2007 12:43 AM , Sean said...
Even if they are copied later, they still payoff first, so it is key that they capatilize on their differentiation right away. Now if we could only get Walmart to do this with their how many stores? That would save the world for sure
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