Westfield Topanga & The Village, one of the busiest shopping centers in the U.S., is now among the nation’s most environmentally conscious retail destinations.

The 125-acre Woodland Hills center, which attracts 22 million shoppers a year, will unveil an array of 9,000 solar panels on Thursday, bringing the property’s total to nearly 15,000. The panels were installed in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in three phases, beginning in 2012.

The LADWP provided incentives of $3.5 million over the various phases of installation.

Jason Rondou, who manages the LADWP’s strategic development and programs division, said the incentive program has been in place since 1999. “To date, we’ve paid $322 million in rebates to commercial, residential and nonprofit customers,” he said.

The incentives are part of the agency’s goal of producing 70 percent of its energy through renewable sources by 2036.

Enough to power 730 homes

The Westfield center’s total array will be capable of generating 6.6-gigawatt hours of clean energy — enough to power 730 average-sized homes for a year. The panels are projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 4,900 metric tons in the first year alone — the equivalent of taking more than 1,000 cars off the road.

“This is one of many initiatives we’ve done — and obviously the biggest — over the last few years to become more energy efficient and reduce our carbon footprint,” said Molly Unger, Westfield Topanga’s vice president and general manager. “We have replaced our lighting with LED lights, we added lighting timers and we also installed skylight tinting.”

Tinting reduces the amount of heat coming in through a skylight, allowing a building’s cooling system to operate more efficiently. The center also added electric vehicle charging stations and chiller control systems.

A “Better Places 2030” initiative

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the mall’s developer and owner, now has solar energy systems at six California locations including Westfield Century City, Culver City and Fashion Square in Los Angeles, Westfield UTC in San Diego and Westfield Valley Fair in Silicon Valley.

The upgrades at Westfield Topanga & The Village are part of the company’s “Better Places 2030” sustainability initiative working to achieving a 50 percent reduction of its carbon emissions by 2030.

The move addresses direct emissions, indirect emissions generated from construction, tenant energy consumption and employee transportation.

Requirements for solar power

The California Energy Commission adopted new building standards in May that will require solar photovoltaic systems on all new homes and low-rise apartment buildings beginning in 2020. Commercial buildings won’t be far behind, according to commission spokeswoman Amber Pasricha Beck.

“Building standards are updated every three years and the last few years we’ve been focused on residential,” Beck said. “We’re just beginning the process of looking at commercial and multi-family buildings. The standards have to technologically feasible and cost-effective. This may not happen during the next cycle, or even the one after that … but we’re moving in that direction.”