Governor Highlights Nation’s Largest Rooftop Solar Installation Project

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much, John, for your wonderful talk and for creating all this exciting news. I think the dignitaries have already been mentioned. The only other person that I want to mention is Jim Brulte, a senator back here who is also here with us who has been a great leader and a big believer in solar, so it's great to have you also here today with all of us.

As John was saying, we have been meeting regularly about this and it's really great to have Edison be out there in front about the solar energy. As you can see right now, we are standing up here, or some of you are sitting, on this rooftop of this building, but thanks to the bold leadership of the people behind me here, this is going to become a launch pad. This is the first project in Southern California Edison's plan to install as you have heard 65 million square feet of solar film on top of business buildings all over the state of California. This is enough, and I think that John Bryson has already talked about how much space it is, but this is an equivalent space of 1,100 football fields, which is just another way of looking at it, so you see how much space that is. It is the nation's largest solar installation by a utility.

When it's complete, it will produce enough power for 162,000 homes, so that is really spectacular. It is electricity, by the way, that is produced without emitting any greenhouse gases, no transmission lines and no fossil fuel is needed for this. So when we need that power most during the hot summer months, this solar technology will be at its best. We will harness California's abundant sunshine and deliver electricity straight to our power grid. I love when big ideas like this turn into great victories for the state of California, I have to tell you.

And just like our million solar roof program, this program will help us achieve our goal, which is to have 20 percent of renewable by the year 2010. And it also will help us meet our greenhouse gas emission targets under AB 32, which is to roll back our greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the year 2020 and then an additional 85 percent after that by the year 2050. When we set those goals, we knew that the great California companies would respond with innovation and that's exactly what we see here today.

Southern California Edison and ProLogis are doing just that. They saw an opportunity and they took action and I love action. You know I was in action movies, I love action. I want every CEO and every scientist to look at this and to listen to us. California has the power, we have the innovation and we have the will to make this an energy independent state, to make it the first state in the union to be energy independent while we are fighting global warming. Now it's not going to happen overnight, but deep down in my heart I know it will happen.

And we want you to all join us, because all of us up here believe that this project is just a hint of what's to come in the future. Imagine what would be accomplished if everyone had the same ambition, had the same courage as this one utility had and this one property owner had. The possibilities are absolutely endless. So let's set our sights even higher, let's reach even further and let's think even bigger. Let's finish the work that we have begun here in California and create the future that we all want for our world, the future that we all have been waiting for.

Thank you very much.