For millions of New Jersey residents, solar power is coming soon to their neighborhoods – even to the utility poles in their backyards.
In a move both bold and expensive, state regulators yesterday approved a plan for Public Service Electric & Gas Co., the state’s largest utility, to install solar panels on 200,000 utility poles in its service territory.
The project will make New Jersey the nation’s second-most solar-fueled state, according to the state Board of Public Utilities, trailing only California.
PSE&G will spend $515 million to install 80 megawatts of solar power through the end of 2013, doubling the state’s solar capacity. Half the new production will be derived from individual solar modules mounted on about a quarter of PSE&G’s 900,000 utility poles.
The other 40 megawatts of production will be generated by centralized solar arrays, including one at PSE&G’s Cox’s Corner Switching Station in Evesham Township, Burlington County.
The 80-megawatt PSE&G project amounts to a tenth of the nation’s current total grid-connected photovoltaic capacity, according to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
“We think it’s a good program to get solar started in the state,” said Stefanie Brand, director of the N.J. Division of Rate Counsel, the state’s consumer advocate. Her office supported PSE&G’s proposal, which she said had a “very minor impact” on rates – adding about 10 cents per month for a residential customer in the first year, a 0.13 percent increase.
But the PSE&G project still amounts to only about 4.4 percent of the ambitious goal the state has set for power generated from renewable energy sources by 2020.
Unlike most solar projects, which supply individual customers with electricity, the PSE&G plan has attracted attention because its panels will feed directly into the electrical grid. PSE&G is calling the project “Solar 4 All” to drive home the point that all customers will benefit from solar, not just those who can afford to mount the heavily subsidized panels on their rooftops.
via PSE&G plan takes solar energy public | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/30/2009.
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