Energize!

Giving new purpose to an old brownfield

One of the hallmarks of PSE&G’s Solar 4 All® Program is the fact that we take old landfills and brownfields and give them a new life as a solar farm.  In fact, we started Solar 4 All 10 years ago with four solar farms built on brownfield sites that we own in Trenton, Edison, Linden and Hackensack, New Jersey.

So it’s fitting for us to now announce that our largest solar farm to-date is in-service on a brownfield site in Pennsauken, New Jersey.  We built the 15.2-megawatt-dc Pennsauken Solar Farm on a 32-acre site that housed a company that manufactured porcelain-enameled, cast-iron bath fixtures starting in the 1920s. Then from 1973 on, the site was home to warehouse and distribution operations. Today, 37,908 solar panels cover the site and generate enough electricity to power more than 2,500 homes annually.

As a New Jersey company, we are proud of the fact that we partnered with the owners of the Pennsauken brownfield site, Vineland Construction Co., to give this property a new lease on life. We also hired Vanguard Energy Partners, an industry-leading solar installer based in Branchburg, New Jersey, to act as turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the Pennsauken Solar Farm.

Since 2009, PSE&G has invested more than $600 million on the Solar 4 All program and created hundreds of jobs. At the height of construction, there were approximately 75 people on-site, working on the Pennsauken solar project in a range of jobs, including electricians, engineers, carpenters, heavy equipment operators and laborers.

The Pennsauken Solar Farm is the 34th Solar 4 All project. In addition to the five solar farms built on brownfields, there are an additional six projects built on landfill sites. These 11 solar farms use more than 230 acres of landfill and brownfield space by installing nearly 250,000 solar panels, capable of generating more than 80 megawatts-dc of solar power, which is enough to power about 13,000 homes annually.

Andrew Powers, Program Manager – Solar4 All®, PSE&G

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