Lithographix Powers Its Future With Solar --Michelson

BEING LOCATED in Southern California isn’t exactly one of the more business-friendly regions for a $120+ million commercial printing establishment to call home. With a state facing huge budget deficits, printers here deal with escalating business taxes, high labor and healthcare costs, severe traffic congestion and very strict environmental regulations. One ray of good news, though, is the area’s year-round moderate climate that results in an abundance of sunshine. Lithographix Inc. has parlayed that one competitive advantage by recently completing a $4.5 million solar energy project, which is said to be the largest deployment of solar power infrastructure at any commercial printer in the United States and one of the largest of any type in the entire state of California. The rooftop of Lithographix’s 250,000-square-foot facility in Hawthorne is now adorned with 2,248 solar panels (see photos below). The array is expected to offset the commercial, retail and grand-format printer’s energy demands by 30 percent or about $30,000 a month. Creating enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 390 homes for a year, Lithographix’s new solar system reduces the plant’s carbon emissions by 630 tons per year (equal to removing the annual emissions of 125 cars).