In honor of Earth Day, Disney Parks has shared information about their solar facilities around the world, and announced that two more solar facilities are in development in Central Florida.
These two new 75MW solar facilities will be in addition to Walt Disney World’s two pre-existing solar fields, including the Mickey-shaped array of solar panels. This solar field was built in partnership with Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) and Duke Energy, while a second 270-acre, 57MW solar field was built in partnership with RCID and Origis Energy USA.
The new solar facilities will be built in collaboration with RCID and local utility partners. They are expected to go online in about two years. In total, Walt Disney World’s four solar facilities will generate up to 40% of its annual energy consumption.
A new solar energy site is also being constructed at Disneyland Paris. Disney’s current worldwide goal is to achieve net-zero emissions for their direct operations by 2030. Watch a video about how Disney Parks harness solar power below.
Why isn’t Disney building these over the parking lots? Clear cutting hundreds of acres of trees to lay down solar panels seems self defeating for tackling climate change goals.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I’m being a local here I can see literally that they must’ve taken down close to 100,000 trees for these two facilities because these were sickly packed tree lots. Building facilities over the massive amounts of parking lots they have would be twofold… All the cars would save energy after baking in the sun all day by being shaded. And you would have a solar facility close to the parks. Also like in Las Vegas they could also be building solar farms on top of all their hotels and attractions. Sorry Disney one step forward two steps back
It’s all optics for companies like Disney and politicians these days. Just one massive virtue signal at the expense of something else.
All of Florida should cover their parking lots in solar panels. Parking in the sun there is horrible, plus if parking was shaded you could leave your windows cracked a bit without worrying about afternoon storms.