PSE&G’s Solar-Energy Plans Expected to Get Go-Ahead

Public Service Electric & Gas is expected to win approval to expand its aggressive efforts to build solar-energy systems in the state, although on a smaller scale than what the Newark-based utility proposed last August.

The contested settlement, expected to be approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities next month, would allow the utility to spend $247 million to build 42 megawatts (mw) of grid-supply solar-energy systems, most of which would be located on brownfields, landfills and “areas of historic fill.” It also would allow another 3 mw in pilot projects on parking lots and as part of grid-security projects.

Besides the grid-supply projects, the utility also will be able to finance another 97.5 megawatts of new solar-energy systems under a solar loan program for homes and businesses, to be installed by solar developers around the state. The cost of that program is unclear, but it is at the same level of new solar capacity proposed last year, which the utility said would cost $194 million.

The grid-supply systems are unlike most of the solar-energy systems now installed in the state, which serve residential and commercial installations, mostly providing electricity to those structures in order to lower electricity costs, although occasionally supplying power to the grid when they have excess power.

Read more at NJSpotlight.com

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