Tesla began building Gigafactory outside Sparks, Nevada, in June 2014. Upon completion, Tesla expects it to be the largest building in the world—and—fully powered by renewable energy sources. The factory is designed to be self-sufficient when complete, and will primarily run on solar energy. The installation of solar panels has already begun.
The solar panels will assist in the production of battery cells and electric vehicles at Gigafactory 1, where Tesla has ramped up production rates since November 2018. The factory produces battery cells for Model 3, as well as energy storage systems like the Powerwall, Powerpack, and Megapack.
According to satellite images, Tesla continues to install solar panels on the roof of the factory. New clusters of solar panels were spotted on October 4, which weren’t present as of September 24.
Tesla has always planned to launch Gigafactory 1 with a fully renewable energy plant roof that can hold a 70 MW solar system. While Gigafactory 1 is already running on some solar panels, Tesla is obviously taking steps to cover the remaining parts of the roof with solar panels.
With the help of solar panels, Gigafactory 1 will become one of the most sustainable buildings in the world. We hope that soon the roof of Gigafactory 1 will be covered with solar panels, similar to the Tilburg assembly plant in the Netherlands. Tesla installed a 3.4 MW solar cell assembly at a site in Tilburg that generates enough electricity to meet the needs of the facility for most of the year.
"Really like solar and battery go together like peanut butter and jelly. You obviously need the battery, particularly as you get to scale and you want to have solar be a bigger and bigger percentage of the grid. If you don't have the batteries there to balance the grid and buffer the power, you really can't go beyond a certain percentage of solar in a particular neighborhood," said Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
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About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
