I came across the following editorial from the Towanda PA, Sunday Review.
Anybody else hear of utilities turning their transmission lines into energy
sources through use of small scale solar electric panels?
George Frantz
Editorial
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Northeast Pennsylvania power-line project has solar power lesson
Published: Sunday, August 2, 2009 3:10 AM EDT
As 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.
Copyright © 2009 - The Daily and Sunday Review
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