USA: Landmark Texan brewery turns into solar lab

The landmark Pearl Brewery, where the Texan beer was once made, will soon become a "learning laboratory" for green research, San Antonio's utility and the building's renovator announced, according to Reuters, June 11.

Solar panels will be able to generate about a quarter of the power needed to serve the 67,000 square foot (6,200 square meters) warehouse being renovated by Silver Ventures into a mix of offices, shops and residences.

The $1.35 million project will allow city-owned utility CPS Energy "to test the viability of a solar energy application in a large, real-world commercial application," according to a statement by CPS and Silver Ventures.

CPS Energy hopes to have 15 percent of all its customers' peak power demand met with renewable sources by 2020. Milton Lee, general manager of CPS, says renewables make 11 percent of the power delivered now to its more than 600,000 customers.

Solar panels will have the capacity to make about 200 kilowatts of electricity at the building to be called the Full Goods Building that is to open in June 2008.

An educational component of the project will advocate the use of solar power and show visitors modern meters that show how much solar energy is being created when they visit.

The Pearl Brewery is a landmark in San Antonio, located north of downtown. Pearl beer was made there from 1883 to 2001. Pearl Beer is now owned by Pabst Brewing Co., which farms out Pearl's production to a brewery in Fort Worth, Texas that Miller Brewing Co. owns.

It once had a wider distribution, but now can only be bought in parts of Texas and Oklahoma.

CPS has more than 600,000 electricity and more than 300,000 natural gas customers.