Wal-Mart has financed solar power systems from SunPower Corporation to be deployed on seven Wal-Mart facilities in California. The power generation of the systems will total approximately 4 megawatts.

The systems are part of Wal-Mart’s broader initiative to reduce the company’s environmental footprint and are expected to provide an average of 25 percent of Wal-Mart’s energy usage at each of the seven facilities.

The financing agreement was secured under the SunPower Access program, which allows customers to purchase solar-generated electricity from a financing partner as an alternative to outright purchase of the solar power systems themselves. SunPower arranges the solar power system’s financing and sells the system to the financing partner, in addition to designing, deploying and maintaining the system to the customer’s requirements. The customer pays the financing partner for the solar electricity generated over a long-term power purchase agreement.

Contractors can offer a similar kind of service.  EC