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Northeast Pennsylvania power-line project has solar power lesson
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share thisAs an electric utility's continued effort to impose a massive 100-mile transmission line through Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne and Pike counties in northeast Pennsylavania in order to deliver power somewhere else, a New Jersey utility has begun to demonstrate the potential for locally generated power.
Although the PPL construction project does not directly affect Bradford and Sullivan counties geography, the lessons to be learned from the alternatives will be of benefit to all.
Public Service Electric & Gas Co., New Jersey's largest utility, plans to install electricity-generating solar panels on 200,000 utility poles within its service territory. The project, approved last week by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, will make the Garden State second only to California in generation of solar power.
The company will spend about $515 million to establish 80 megawatts of generating power by 2013 - half from the pole-mounted panels and half from larger arrays that it will establish at some of its properties. In all, the project will produce enough power for about 80,000 homes. The project will raise rates by 10 cents per month, per customer.
One of the great advantages of the system is the power will be placed directly on the existing power grid. It will not have to be transmitted from a distant power plant. Each pole-mounted unit includes a device that converts the direct current produced by the solar cells into alternating current that can be added to the grid, pole by pole.
Reliance on long-range transmission is one of the major problems regarding energy. It is the cause of the PPL transmission line project. And the lack of an adequate grid recently was cited by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens as the key reason for his postponement of building the world's largest wind farm project on the Texas plains.
The New Jersey project also demonstrates the potential of alternative energy to help drive economic development. Petra Solar Inc., of South Plainfield, N.J., has the $200 million contract for the solar units. It plans to triple its existing work force by adding 100 full-time jobs.
Pennsylvania, like New Jersey, has imposed targets on utilities for alternative energy generation. State lawmakers and regulators should encourage Pennsylvania utilities, including First Energy and its subsidiary Penelec, which serves our area, to come up with innovative ideas, like the New Jersey project, not just to meet those goals but to reduce reliance on burdensome long-distance transmission.
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