When Darden Restaurants, which owns and operates Olive Garden, Red Lobster and a collection of smaller chains, decided to make its new facility as sustainable as possible, solar was an obvious choice.

The Restaurant company, which employs nearly 1,000 people just at its corporate offices in Orlando, Fla., has started work on installing a new 1.1-megawatt solar array.

“This project is really an extension of our sustainability program,” said Rich Jeffers with Darden’s corporate communications.

He said the company’s new 469,000-square-foot office facility in Orlando brought together employees from 12 different buildings in the Orlando area and put them together under a single roof.

Darden had hoped when it built the facility two years ago to include solar, but construction issues and the addition of a new branch of the business forced the company to put the solar project on hold. But now is a good time with solar rebates and incentives, Jeffers said.

In doing that, Darden aimed to be as green as it could be, Jeffers said.

The dining giant built the state’s largest Leadership in Energy and Environment Design Gold certified building.

“We wanted to show corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship,” Jeffers said.

The company was known for its commitment to the sustainability of the world’s oceans and sea life for years.

“We were a leader in seafood sustainability before ‘sustainability’ was even a buzz word,” Jeffers said.

Its water conservation program and equipment saved more than 16 million gallons of water in the last year, Jeffers said.

“Now we want to do the same thing with our energy consumption,” Jeffers said.

He said the new solar array will cover the roof of the building’s parking garage and most of one south-facing wing of the building. It will provide about 20 percent of the building’s energy need.

“Our goal is get as much off the grid as we can,” Jeffers said. “This solar array will be the equivalent of taking our whole building off the grid for two months out of the year.”

Kenyon Energy Solutions is installing the SolarWorld panels on the building and construction is expected to start within the next couple weeks, Jeffers said.