At General Motors, “going green” may be as much of a catch phrase for helping the environment as it means saving precious cash. For instance, earlier this month it announced plans to lease 2,000,000 square feet of rooftop space at a plant in Zaragoza, Spain, to a company that installs solar panels. “From a GM perspective, we get revenue for leasing the roof and adding solar to a rooftop instead of taking up valuable land,” said Rob Threlkeld, GM's Green Initiative Manager, during a web conference on renewable energy today.

The result should generate twelve megawatts of power, which should be enough to run 4,575 Spanish households. This idea is not new to GM. Two facilities in the U.S. have already implemented similar projects, but their size is much smaller than the one at the Zaragoza plant. “As big as this facility is, I don't see many roof top projects of this size being completed around the world,” Threlkeld added.

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