Solar Power Plants | Green Energy News

April 20, 2003 – Vol.8 No.4

SOLAR POWER PLANTS -- A NEW CENTURY INDUSTRY?

Once heavily industrial, much of the United State is now dotted with closed-up factories and industrial acreage not suitable for homes or businesses. What were once sites of booming industries are now properties in limbo. Solar arrays need only access to the open sky; the ground or building beneath them need not be perfect. Could the nation’s ex-industrial wastelands be sites for solar electric power plants?

BP has built the largest solar system on the East Coast at the 130 acre site of a former petroleum and specialty chemical storage and distribution facility in Paulsboro, New Jersey. Across the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia, the array of 5880 panels will supply power needs for up to 30 percent of the environmental remediation equipment now used at the former terminal - an estimated 350,000 kilowatt hours a year, or enough power for 50 average homes.

The project was mostly funded by BP with assistance from the New Jersey Clean Energy Program, a rebate program in that state for installed renewable energy along with the Virginia Alliance for Solar Energy which distributes U.S. Department of Energy funding for solar projects in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region. Visit BP at http://www.bp.com/ (click Press Centre) the New Jersey Clean Energy Program at http://www.njcleanenergy.com/ and VASE at http://www.mme.state.va.us/de/vase.html .