Today (April 1) SolarCity and Walgreens introduced a new partnership in Aurora, CO, under which SolarCity will install solar photovoltaics on Walgreens pharmacies at 22 locations throughout Colorado. The companies are installing the arrays in 14 Colorado cities in Xcel Energy’s coverage area. Official from the companies, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R) and Aurora’s Mayor Steve Hogan were on hand to cut the ribbon at the first completed system.

“It's exciting to see that Walgreens is going to do 22 stores throughout our state and the first one that they picked was in Aurora, Colo.,” Coffman said. “It kind of brings me full-circle.…When I was 16 years old and in Aurora, one of my first jobs was working for a Walgreens.”

SolarCity has partnered with many other major chain retailers, among them Walmart but this is its first project with Walgreens, said Eric Wittenberg, SolarCity’s regional vice president of Colorado. “We're hoping that there are many more stores to come,” he added.

While it’s the first project with SolarCity, Walgreens has been going solar for a while. “I'm thrilled to be part of this 135th store unveiling, We have plenty more to do. I think by the time SolarCity is done with Aurora and surrounding cities, we'll be at 150 stores,” said Menno Enters, director of Energy and Sustainability at Walgreens. “There will be more to come. We continue to lead in this area.” Indeed, the only retailer that has more solar installations in the U.S. is Walmart, according to the Vote Solar Initiative’s and Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA’s) “Solar Means Business: Top Commercial Solar Customers in the U.S.” Walmart had 10 more systems when the report was last updated in November 2012.

The company has rolled out solar installations at its stores since 2007. Part of its efforts to meeting the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Better Buildings Challenge. The company also is buildng new stores to LEED standards, Enters said. “We continue to lead in this area. Just like we lead in the area of LEED stores. We have a net-zero energy store that's slated to go up in November that actually produces more renewable energy than the store consumes, which has never been done before,” he said. The company also has more than 500 locations with electric vehicle charges, he said.

The stores adding solar are all doing so under Xcel Energy’s Solar*Rewards program, which has operated since 2006. “Since that time we have seen more than 14,000 photovoltaic systems be installed, at homes and businesses with a total of more than 155 megawatts installed,” said Jerome Davis, a regional vice president with Xcel Energy. “That helps in terms of what we're looking at in terms of environmental leadership,” he said.

Related to the Walgreens partnership with SolarCity, “The applications lead up to almost 1 megawatt,” Davis said.