They ranged from Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, which committed to doubling the number of onsite solar energy projects at its US operations by 2020, to low-income housing leaders and service suppliers.

Obama spoke at one of Wal-Mart’s stores in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay area near Silicon Valley, among his strongest bases of political support.

He noted that Wal-Mart already has the most installed on-site solar capacity of any company in America.