Mushrooms do not normally need much help from the sun, but nearly 5,000 solar panels have popped up alongside buildings that house white button mushrooms near West Grove, Pennsylvania. Marlboro Mushrooms, the oldest family mushroom farm in the country, has added a 1.13 Megawatt solar array to help offset energy costs. North Carolina-based Southern Energy Management (SEM) installed the SunPower solar PV system.

"Keeping mushroom crops in a controlled environment requires a tremendous amount of electricity to maintain optimal growing conditions, and we thought it was a natural step to use solar power to shoulder some of that load," said Marlboro Mushrooms' Tom Brosius.

"It is great to harvest the sun's power and take advantage of a renewable resource. We anticipate it will generate 100% of our annual electric needs."

Spread across nearly seven acres, the installation deploys SunPower's T0 tracking system, which uses GPS technology to ensure all 4,953 of the SunPower 228-watt modules are always tracking the sun.

"Our site for installation slopes to the north, so a traditional fixed PV array would have not been feasible due to shading and the greater footprint required," explained Harold Brosius of Marlboro Mushrooms.

"This project helps Marlboro Mushrooms save money on energy costs and moves them in the right direction in terms of long-term sustainability and environmental stewardship," said Blair Kendall, SEM's director of business development. "SEM was happy to help the farm make this happen, and we're looking forward to seeing them reap the benefits for the next 30 years or more."

Construction of the ground-mounted array had a short turnaround time: crews started work on the installation in late August and had the entire system on line by the end of November, a full three weeks ahead of schedule. The Marlboro Mushrooms array is the largest moving solar array in Pennsylvania.