PSE&G Installs Solar Panels in NJ

If you live in or around Wayne Township in New Jersey then perhaps you have spotted the solar panels that PSE&G workers have been diligently installing on top of telephone poles in the area. What you may not know is that these panels are part of a new program called the Solar 4 All program that PSE&G launched at the beginning of April.

The PSE&G Solar 4 All Program is designed to bring enough solar power energy to the area to power approximately 12,500 average sized New Jersey homes. Adding 80 megawatts of solar electric generation capacity to the company’s electrical system by the end of next year should accomplish this.

That’s right; the solar panels are hooked directly into the electric grid. This means that the renewable solar energy that the panels gather will be used by all of the customers on the grid.

The panels that you might have seen going up on local telephone poles are only one part of the project. The Solar 4 All Program is divided into two parts with half of the panels going up on neighborhood utility poles and the other half going onto "centralized" locations. What does that mean? PSE&G is leasing space on rooftops and other third party sites where the company can install large scale solar farms. For example, the program is affiliated with Yardville Solar Farm, one of the largest solar farms in the state.

You may be wondering what this is going to cost you as a PSE&G consumer if the company is paying to lease space for solar panels. However, the program itself offset the costs. The solar energy collected has value that is worth federal investment tax credit creating savings that the company can then pass on to NJ PSE&G electric customers. This offsets the cost of installing the solar panels according to the company.

Source: http://www.pseg.com/family/pseandg/solar4all/index.jsp