New Jersey will never replace Florida as the Sunshine State, but business leaders and government officials are hoping to make this the Solar State.
LOCATION — New Jersey will never replace Florida as the Sunshine State, but business leaders and government officials are hoping to make this the Solar State.
Helped by incentives and rebates, the solar business is hot and getting hotter in the state, said M. Todd Foley, director of business development and external affairs for BP Solar, a division of BP plc, the international energy giant.
"New Jersey's solar program is a model for the nation and the world," Foley said Monday at a solar seminar at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. "New Jersey is one of the fastest-growing (solar) markets in the United States."
More than 100 solar market manufacturers, installers, service providers and customers participated Monday in what was called the "New Jersey Solar Market Mixer."
The gathering, scheduled for the eve of the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year, with more than 15 hours of sunlight in this area -- was held in NJIT's new student center, which is partially heated and cooled by the sun.
"This is the beginning of an incredible revolution," said Jeanne M. Fox, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, which sponsored the session. "Our goal is that clean, renewable energy in New Jersey will become an industry that is market-driven, sustains itself and creates ... cleaner generation of electricity."
Last month the state recorded its 500th solar installation since 2001, and the number of companies doing them in the state has grown from two in 1993 to more than 90 today, Fox said.
This is no longer a boutique business, said Mark Warner, president and chief executive of Sun Farm Ventures Inc., a Flemington company that does solar installations. "It's for anyone with a sunny roof."
Several speakers cited rebates through the New Jersey Clean Energy program and payments through the state's Solar Renewable Energy Certificates Program, or SREC, for sparking solar power's dramatic growth.
Customers can get rebates up to 70 percent of the installation cost, and more that $21 million in rebates have been issued since 2001, including nearly $11 million last year.
Registered solar owners also receive one SREC for each 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity they produce, and can sell the certificates to electric suppliers or brokers for $160 to $200 each, depending on market dynamics and demand. The certificates are valuable to suppliers because state law requires them to include a certain percentage of renewable energy in their portfolio.
An average residential solar system produces 8,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, generating up to $1,600 a year in SRECs. But even with a solar system, a homeowner is likely to have to pay a utility for some electricity, at least in certain months.
The SREC program began about a year ago, and consumers have already traded in 2,216 SRECs at an average price of $170. The number is expected to more than double to about 4,800 in the next 12 months, the BPU said.
The market is still developing, with utilities and installers often offering to buy the certificates, and the BPU is developing ways to facilitate the sales, Fox said.
So far, projects range from single-family homes to public schools, corporate offices and the Whole Foods in Edgewater. Among the more ambitious projects is the NJIT roof installation, a grid of 160 photovoltaic modules that can produce 50 megawatt-hours of electricity per year -- enough to power seven homes. Almost half of the $490,000 the project cost was covered by rebates, said Boris Shapiro, NJIT's executive director of technical services.
In addition, the college expects to save about $15,000 per year on its electric bill, and the system is expected to pay for itself in 10 to 11 years, he said. At the same time, NJIT is eliminating 78,665 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and 148 pounds of nitrogen oxide emissions that would be produced through fossil-fuel generators.
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
