Home furnishing retailer, IKEA Australia, is celebrating the 'big switch' to solar with the completion of its first installation at its Logan store in Queensland.
The Logan store has been fitted with 2,470 solar panels which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 781T a year.
This equates to 262 car emissions annually or the yearly electricity needs of 118 family homes.
Collectively, the solar installations across seven IKEA buildings will include over 16,000 panels, with an annual output of 5,495 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity.
The remaining IKEA stores will make the switch throughout the rest of 2014 and 2015. IKEA has over 300 stores across
38 countries.
The Logan store solar panel installation is part of the IKEA “People & Planet Positive” strategy for 2020.
IKEA's sustainability manager Richard Wilson, said the company's commitment to sustainability doesn’t stop at solar panels.
"Every day we strive to put more in than we take out, function with the utmost efficiency and turn waste into resources," he said.
The panels are being installed by leading solar energy providers Canadian Solar and Kingspan