SolarCity Announces a Lightweight Roof Mounting Product for Commercial Buildings

After implementing solar energy solutions for hundreds of commercial users in big-box retailer establishments, international company campuses, government organizations, and educational institutions, SolarCity (News - Alert), a provider of clean energy solutions, has launched LightMount, a lightweight roof mounting product that will expand the capacity of solar installation on commercial building rooftops. With the help of LightMount, SolarCity customers will be able to install commercial rooftop solar systems.

To comply with safety standards of commercial buildings their rooftops have to adhere to stringent weight constraints. LightMount has been engineered to ease rooftop weight constraints and maximize the solar capacity of a system. On average, the distributed weight of conventional solar photovoltaic (PV) panels is about 3-4 pounds per square foot (lbs/sq.ft.) With LightMount, the distributed weight of PV panels is reduced to 2.3 lbs/sq.ft., which maximizes the space for solar.

"Many commercial users want to switch to solar energy to meet their company's sustainability goals. LightMount addresses the concerns faced by a lot of commercial users who can now qualify to install a solar system, or maximize the use of their rooftop space to deploy a larger solar system," said Erik Fogelberg, SolarCity's senior director of Commercial Sales, in a statement.

Inability to make any building changes that would require punching holes in the roof or the walls is a major hindrance for commercial customers who wish to lease their real estate space. For these customers, LightMount can be an ideal solution because it is a non-penetrating racking product that is attached to the rooftop creating a monolithic foundation for the solar PV system.

SolarCity is compliant with commercial building safety codes including IBC, NEC (News - Alert), OSHA, UL and DSA and has NABCEP-certified personnel. The company caters to all facets of the solar implementation, including the design, auditing, permitting, monitoring and maintenance of the solar systems for the lifetime of the contract.