Walmart India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart Inc, is planning to incorporate sustainable sources such as solar energy, water harvesting, and recycling to run its stores in the country.

To improve its business along with being environmentally and socially responsible, it has retrofitted the lighting systems in all its stores with LED lights. This has helped reduce energy demand by 15-20 percent.

It has also installed rooftop solar in 17 of its best price stores which meet the 33 percent of the store’s energy requirement. In the next two years, it aims to meet 40 to 50 percent of its energy demand through solar energy. It has also set a goal to use 100 percent renewable power in the future.

More and more retail giants are gradually turning to solar power to meet their increasing energy needs in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.

Recently, Mercom reported that Amazon India, a global e-commerce giant, will set up 8,000 kW of rooftop solar installations by the end of this year at its fulfilment centres and sorting facilities across the country. This initiative in India is a part of Amazon’s global vision to power 50 of its fulfilment and sorting centers with solar energy by the end of 2020. It has already installed 1,600 kW of solar panels at its centres in Delhi and Hyderabad.

In March 2018, Microsoft announced the completion of its first renewable energy deal in India. Under the agreement, the company will purchase 3 MW of solar-power from Atria Power for its new office building in Karnataka’s capital city, Bengaluru. It will meet 80 percent of the projected electricity needs through this energy purchase.

India plans to achieve 40 GW of rooftop solar as part of its broader goal of achieving 100 GW of solar capacity across the country by 2022.

According to the Mercom India Solar Project Tracker, India has an installed capacity of ~2 GW of solar rooftop installations as of March 2018.

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