New Jersey Solar Microsystems on Power Poles
Last August, New Jersey's largest publicly-owned utility, PSEG, announced plans to double its solar capacity with 80 megawatts of new solar power systems. 40 MW of that solar electricity would come via single-panel installations on 200,000 individual utility poles and streetlights throughout New Jersey. Now, nearly a year after approval by regulators, the utility has begun installing solar panels on poles in Lawrence Township, New Brunswick and Monroe, with final plans that include installations in 300 New Jersey communities.
Each solar "unit" is 5' x 2.5' in size and produces 200 watts of solar electricity at peak output. The solar panels sit about 16 feet above ground level, hovering above potential obstructions to direct sunlight. Energy costs for the average PSEG customer will increase only $1.20 in the first year, the utility says.
Those minimal costs are easily outweighed by the environmental benefits achieved by the project, dubbed Solar 4 All by the utility. Al Matos, PSEG's vice president for renewables and energy solutions, told the South Brunswick Post, "The solar panels bring the benefit of clean, renewable energy to all our customers, and the electricity generated from them helps us combat climate change.”
Before Solar 4 All is completed in 2013, PSEG expects to invest about $515 million in the project. That includes the other 40 MW of solar power to come from more centralized installations, including large solar farms and rooftop installations in Trenton and Linden, among other cities.
So far, some 30,000 solar panels have been mounted. Their location on top of power and light poles makes for easy connection to the electric grid. This means that local residents who see the panels when they walk out their front door can visibly recognize the renewable energy silently flowing into the community power grid -- a fact that quickly garners broad support for the program, according to a PSEG spokesman.
The Solar 4 All project is as "distributed" as solar power can get, with only a single panel at each installation. This must increase labor costs through added transportation and installation time for installers, as well as some extra greenhouse gas emissions from all that driving (although delegating installation to employees within each community could mitigate some of this). Yet the panels' ideal location above obstructions, in residential neighborhoods and as close to the energy grid as any solar panel can get probably make up for a good portion of those environmental and economic costs.
Plus, the conspicuous visibility of the panels can't hurt PSEG or solar power in New Jersey in a PR sense, either.
Photo Credit: PSEG
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