Solar Power Poles  

Ed gunther has a post on a New Jersey utlities' plan to put solar panels up on power poles (which reminds me somewhat of Bucky Fuller's old proposal to put wind turbines on transmission towers) - PSE&G 120 MegaWatt “Solar 4 All”, All for Solar!.

On the heels of "Feed-in Tariffs: Solar FiT for Gainesville, Florida" by municipal Gainesville Regional Utilities, investor-owned utility Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) proposed a $773 Million, 120 MW solar electric energy program bringing distributed solar modules to towns and neighborhoods throughout their New Jersey Electric Service Area. PSE&G is the largest subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. “PSE&G Proposes $773 Million Solar Energy Program” outlines the proposal to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities encompassing the “Solar 4 All” Program’s four segments:

* Neighborhood Solar (40 MW) $264 million investment
* Local Government Solar (43 MW) $273 million investment
* Centralized Solar (35 MW) $221 million investment
* Affordable Housing Solar (2 MW) $15 million investment

Wednesday afternoon, I chatted at length with PSE&G Vice President – Renewables and Energy Solutions Al Matos about the Neighborhood Solar portion of the plan placing solar modules on 200000 utility poles and street lights in the PSE&G service area.

The idea for utility pole mounted PV germinated last summer to leverage the company’s existing real estate assets already connected to the electric infrastructure. At the beginning, there were a host of technical reasons why PSE&G should not do it:

* Module size too large
* Hazard to workforce
* Module like a sail – wind or storms could knock down PV poles and degrade system reliability
* Inverters too large and heavy

PSE&G progressed through these obstacles, solving the issues one by one and integrating the utility pole solar concept into their theme of visible and local solar in neighborhoods, schools and municipal buildings, and gray/brown fields. Two technology developments were fundamental enablers: smaller, more efficient PV modules and micro-inverters. And last, a module mounting method was found to optimize power output (south facing at a slight angle) without being a hazard to the utility workforce.

Next, PSE&G decided to select 200000 utility poles with 120 Volt Alternating Current (VAC) lines from the 900000 poles in their service territory. At about 200 Watt-peak (Wp) per solar module, 200000 utility poles times 200 Wp yields the 40 MWp (MegaWatt-peak) capacity of distributed solar generation spread throughout the PSE&G service territory. Customers can see and feel connected to solar sited in their own neighborhoods.