Solar Panels Power Jobs, Electricity For Queensbridge Residents

ASTORIA/LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Solar panels that a group of Queensbridge Houses residents installed on their buildings will in part fund scholarships and provide discounted electricity rates for low-income New Yorkers, the housing authority said on Thursday.

NYCHA and a trio of solar developers partnered with Green City Force (GCF), which trained over a dozen members of the Queensbridge Tenants Association to install the solar panels on over two-dozen Queensbridge buildings as a part of this project, reported the Queens Daily Eagle.

Once completed, NYCHA said the project will generate $1.3 million dollars and 1.8 megawatts of electricity — some of which will benefit low-income New Yorkers, according to the housing authority.

NYCHA plans to devote a portion of the money to funding scholarships for low-income New Yorkers, and some of the electricity will provide discounted electricity rates for about 470 New York City households, including NYCHA residents, they said in a news statement.

Matt Russotti, CEO of Sol Purpose, one of the developers of the project, hopes that people across the country will see this project as one that converted “underutilized public assets into economic and social drivers for positive change.”

Also, the GCF training involved an OSHA certification, which can be used at other construction and green jobs, which Doreen Harris, the President and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, described in a news statement as “an avenue for employment that supports an equitable transition to a clean energy economy.”

This solar panel project is part NYCHA’s Sustainability Agenda goal of generating 25 megawatts of solar power citywide by 2025 — green energy that contributes to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s climate change goal of reducing greenhouse gases by at least 80 percent by 2050.