Pennsylvania is known for coal mines and muscle. Its industry had a tough black-and-blue streak. But now the state is aggressively trying to lighten up. The question is, can it make solar energy its new steel?
State officials are pouring $180 million into the solar effort, hoping to reverse deepening job losses by encouraging thousands of new installations on residential rooftops and by covering fields with sprawling sunlit arrays.
The initiative is poised to unleash its money in April. As a result, Pennsylvania is expected to surge from nowhere into a pack of states leading a national push toward a brighter solar scene. It's a play that officials hope will secure a swath of jobs in solar manufacturing and installation, while preparing the state's economy for promised federal regulations on carbon dioxide emissions.
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| Exelon-Epuron Solar Energy Center in Bucks County, Pa., is the largest solar array on the East Coast, with 17,000 panels that provide about 3 megawatts of electricity. Photo courtesy of Exelon Generation. |
"We're trying to get our share early," said Tom Tuffey, director of the Center for Energy, Enterprise and the Environment at PennFuture, an advocacy group working to attract renewable energy projects to the state. "Solar is about to pop."
Pennsylvania has 14 wind farms, but relatively few solar projects. The wave of state funding, passed last summer in a sweeping renewable energy bill, is meant to change that. It has created a virtual fire sale, using grants to offset about a third of every project. Throw in new federal tax credits, and the owners of homes and businesses can reduce their investment by about 40 percent.
Within four years, Pennsylvania should have about 14,000 homes with rooftop panels, close to a thirtyfold increase, says Tuffey. By then the state's investment of $100 million for residential projects will be exhausted -- and the solar market could have a foothold in Pennsylvania. Installation and equipment prices will drop, officials hope, because the grants will bring new businesses -- and competition -- to the area.
Meanwhile, an additional $80 million will be helping utilities and generators build large-scale arrays through state grants, tax credits and low-interest loans. Manufacturers of solar equipment can also collect cash for settling or expanding in the state.
"With that kind of investment, Pennsylvania is going to be one the state leaders for solar," said Mark Sinclair, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance, a nonprofit in Vermont that helps states design renewable energy programs.
The state is expected to have about 750 megawatts of wind-derived power by year's end. But solar has advantages: It provides energy when people need it the most, during the day. Wind blows hardest at night.
Purely environmental arguments are gaining traction in Pennsylvania, but they're almost always twinned with job creation. More than 76,000 people lost work there last year, driving the unemployment rate up to 6.7 percent. The solar campaign has been shaped to attract a range of jobs, from installers and engineers to manufacturing and research positioning workers.
"We think there's a lot of jobs that can be created with it," said Jeanne Dworetzky, executive director of the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority.
Pennsylvania still trails behind states like California, which has been pushing solar for a decade, and New Jersey, which has become a major player recently. Public Service Electric and Gas Co. in New Jersey, for example, asked state regulators last week to approve a $773 million plan to develop 120 megawatts of solar power. Nevada and Colorado are also leaders.
Still, Pennsylvania has some bragging rights: It hosts the largest solar array on the East Coast, a facility in Bucks County with 17,000 panels that generate 3 megawatts. It's one of the five biggest facilities in the nation. Unlike some of its crowded New England neighbors, Pennsylvania has a lot of land.
The project, named the Exelon-Epuron Solar Energy Center, is the result, in part, of the state's renewable portfolio standard. The standard is similar to those found in a host of other states, and requires power companies to obtain about 850 megawatts of solar energy by 2021. Otherwise, they could pay penalties.
"They need solar," said Robb Jetty, director of development on the East Coast for Recurrent Energy, a San Francisco-based company that builds solar arrays and sells the power to utilities.
While solar might be the new style in Pennsylvania, coal still fires up the electrical system. The state refused to join the nation's first cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which began regulating 233 power plants in 10 states last month, largely because it's a major polluter. Pennsylvania emits twice as much carbon dioxide from coal as all those states combined. Only Texas emits more from coal.
And although the state's solar initiative is being applauded, the amount of power to be produced is relatively small. If the renewable portfolio standard is achieved, the amount of solar energy produced would be equivalent to the generation of one large power plant.
But those traditional comparisons could overlook other contributions from solar. The renewable portfolio standard measures the amount of energy being fed onto the grid. Solar-paneled homes and businesses, however, can essentially be powered without tapping overhead power lines. They could even feed power into the grid -- and earn retail, not lower wholesale, rates by doing so.
There's another concern in the state that could prompt people to seek their own power sources: The state is in the process of lifting its electricity caps, a move that's estimated to raise rates by at least 25 percent, perhaps more.
"Solar is going to be the truly disruptive technology. It can change fundamentally how we power our society," John Hanger, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, told an audience at Widener Law School in Harrisburg last week.
Hanger, the state's point person on climate issues, gave a robust endorsement of solar technology, describing a future in which transmission lines are no longer needed. That implies that coal, which requires concentrated facilities with a spoke-like delivery system, could be phased out.
"More and more of our power sources are going to be right where we live and work," he added. "We want the solar industry and the alternative energy industry ... to be the equivalent of steel for Pennsylvania."
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