Solar panels on the rooftop of World Harvest Church in Pennsauken now provide discounted solar power to nearby residents, without the need for solar panels on their homes. — Courtesy: Solar Landscape
By Joshua Burd
Solar Landscape has completed its eighth and final project under the first year of a state program that uses commercial-scale installations to create discounted energy for residents.
The firm, which is based in Asbury Park, said its portfolio now comprises nearly 20 megawatts of solar power and serves more than 3,000 New Jersey households. That makes it among the largest producers under the first round of the Community Solar Energy Pilot Program, an initiative by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, after it recently energized a rooftop project at World Harvest Church in Pennsauken.
It’s now eyeing a major expansion under the program’s second round.
“This is a milestone for New Jersey’s progress in community solar,” Solar Landscape CEO Shaun Keegan said. “Together with our partners across the state, we are bringing affordable solar energy to thousands of people who thought they could never get it, either because they don’t own their home, they live in a place where solar panels aren’t an option or because they lack the financial resources to install them.
“On behalf of Solar Landscape’s 100-plus employees, we look forward to bringing affordable solar energy to thousands more soon.”
The company has built its portfolio in partnership with many of the state’s top industrial developers, using the vast space on the roofs of big-box warehouses. In a news release, it said its seven community solar projects that were energized in 2021 generated more than 11.5 gigawatt hours of electricity to local residents’ homes and apartments.
Its plans under the program’s second round include 46 projects that were approved last October by the BPU, according to a news release. They’re expected to generate more than 50 megawatts of power and, once energized, will provide electricity for another 7,000 households to expand Solar Landscape’s reach to an anticipated total of at least 10,000 New Jersey homes.
The firm recently started construction on the first of those projects.
“As New Jersey continues to move toward 100 percent clean energy, we’re excited that, through Solar Landscape’s community solar projects in Pennsauken, South Jersey residents have the option to go solar without installing their own solar panels,” Tri-County Sustainability’s Sean Mohen said. “Not only does this mean increasing access to clean energy to more people, it also creates new economic and workforce development opportunities for the area.”
Under the Community Solar Energy Pilot Program, more than half of the energy generated must go to low- to moderate-income households.
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