The ShopRite of Garwood, New Jersey, just completed installation of a 276-kilowatt rooftop solar photovoltaic array.

The building, at 563 North Ave. East in Garwood, now sports 1,024 solar panels which jointly deliver 303,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually to operate lighting and refrigeration units at what is primarily a highly diversified grocer, selling everything from baby food to fresh vegetables, with electronics and pharmacy offering one-stop shopping.

The 276-kilowatt array also prevents 218 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere (by preventing its generation by regional utility PSE&G), and this is equivalent to taking 41.6 cars from the road or planting 5,580 trees.

PSE&G, whose parent company PSEG operates in New Jersey with a generation mix that is more than half natural gas – a commodity subject to wide price swings – announced about a year ago its plan to install $773 million worth of solar energy to diversify the generation mix away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy.

The Garwood ShopRite (and 27 others across the Atlantic Seaboard and into Pennsylvania) is operated by Wakefern Food Corp., a wholesale cooperative on the order of Costco, whose membership enjoys the benefit of low prices through massive buying power.

Wakefern also operates 31 stores under the PriceRite banner, a similar shopping model in the same geographic area offering the same types of merchandise.

Nor is the Garwood ShopRite the only Wakefern store to go solar. In Wharton, New Jersey, an installation of 1,600 solar photovoltaic panels to the ShopRite site created a 358-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by about 280 tons per year.

And in Marlton, New Jersey, the local ShopRite, in 2007, earned coveted Energy Star certification for its ultra-efficient refrigeration system and energy-saving lighting, which together reduce energy consumption by 35 percent compared to other ShopRite stores of similar size.