Today IKEA announced that it will install photovoltaics on all 10 of its locations in the Southern U.S. That brings up the total number of U.S. IKEA buildings that will have solar on them by summer 2012 to 33 out of 44, or 75 percent of its properties in the U.S.

The new round of solar installations will encompass 10.7 megawatts of generation. When completed IKEA will have at least 26.8 megawatts of solar in the U.S.

While the solar arrays won’t provide all of the company’s energy needs, it’s a significant achievement for IKEA—or for that matter any company, which last month announced that just over 50 percent of its U.S. locations would have solar.

“We’re very excited with 10 more locations announced. The more we look into it the easier it seems to get,” said IKEA spokesperson Joseph Roth.

The new installations will be throughout IKEA’s buildings in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

REC Solar will install solar at the Florida and Texas locations, and Gehrlicher Solar America will install the systems in North Carolina and Georgia.

REC has installed solar for IKEA at numerous locations in the U.S. and in other countries.

“It makes the installation easier,” Roth said. “Gerhlicher is fairly new to our repertoire. They appear together as well. We’re certainly excited, and it helps to have stable partners when you’re rolling out such large systems.”

Like IKEA furniture, the company’s stores are also similar, which helps make deploying solar easier, since they already have experience with it at similar locations, according to Roth.

“If anything, we learn something about our buildings or the use of it or information about the roof, where we weren’t aware of how efficient or accommodating our roof structures actually are,” he said. “Some of these stores were designed before rooftop solar was [really cost-effective]. We’re feeling very good that by having good building standards we were prepared for solar.”

IKEA will own each of the systems, as it has with other systems it’s installed in the U.S.

“Being a privately held company, we’re able to think long-term and make these sizable investments and knowing it will pay off in the future,” Roth said.

The company continues to evaluate other stores and buildings in the U.S. for solar, Roth said.

“There’s only two so far that have essentially been ruled out. The only locations so far, where it proved unfeasible was [because of] the location,” he said. “One was an old department store that wasn’t conducive to a wide array. Then we have another building that’s inconveniently placed.”

Another building that came back with a questionable review is being reevaluated.

Image courtesy of IKEA.