ConEdison building Northeast's biggest PV plant

On Oct. 20, ConEdison and Panda Power Funds broke ground on a 20-megawatt solar power station in Pilesgrove, NJ. The solar farm will be equipped to supply clean power to 5,100 homes in New Jersey.

According to Vice President of Development for ConEdison, Mark Noyes, the project will result in a reduction of 1,900 tons of CO2 emissions per year, which amounts to taking 3,400 cars off the road every year.

New Jersey’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) were instrumental in making the project possible.

“Our company didn’t take any incentives for the project, but New Jersey’s RPS requires that anyone who supplies energy loads in New Jersey purchase a certain percentage of that energy from renewable,” said Noyes.

According to Noyes, ConEdison has a half a dozen other solar energy projects in the works in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

“We are looking to install roughly fifty to sixty megawatts each year for the next three years,” Noyes said.

Panda Power Funds, responsible for development, engineering and construction of the solar farm, took care to educate the citizenry about the project.

“We’ve had developers on the ground for about a year and a half. We took our time to do it right. We started by walking door to door, listening to people’s concerns, all around the site,” said Bill Pentak, Panda’s vice president of investor relations and public affairs. “We had a town-hall meeting, sent out regular letters, and we had many meetings with the planning board because we wanted everyone to understand what this project was and what it meant for them, how it was going to work and what it would do for the state of New Jersey.”

Pentak didn’t have a figure for what the economic benefit might be, but he did say it was a consideration.

“I know there were conversations that were had between Panda and township officials in terms of tax revenues,” said Pentak. “They were obviously happy where that came out.”

Pictured: One of ConEdison's solar installations in Queens, N.Y., courtesy of ConEdison.