Growing with growers since 1946
  • May 1st 2011 Issue
  • Story by Richard Lehnert
  • Fruit processor harnesses solar power

    Knouse Foods has long focused on sustainability and has plans for more sustainable practices in the future.

    This 19-acre solar power system at Knouse Foods will generate 4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. The 14,000 230-watt polycrystalline solar panels face south with a 32-degree tilt. The system was installed on a long-closed waste-disposal site and took six months to complete. Knouse Foods, a Pennsylvania-based grower-owned cooperative that is one of the largest fruit processors in the world, has had an environmental program for many years, but its newest project is a bright star, almost literally. It is a 19-acre, 14,000-plus-panel, three-megawatt array of photovoltaic solar panels that will generate about 4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per […]

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