BIGGEST U.S. ROOFTOP SOLAR INSTALLATION

Solar energy offers a unique opportunity to build widely distributed generation. Even a huge rooftop installation like the 1.7-megawatt system PPL Renewable Energy is installing for Schering-Plough Corporation in New Jersey is dwarfed by the megawatts from a solar power plant and or a wind farm.

But smaller, distributed power sources offer things the giants can’t: Distributed financing, the lack of need for new grid construction and ready development without significant community resistance or environmental impacts.

Local rooftop solar also offers a convenient solution to the threat of brownouts. Rooftop solar systems provide the most extra juice on hot summer afternoons, just when demand for power to run air conditioning systems is hitting the grid the hardest.

While the development of new transmission can take inordinately long, be excessively expensive and meet Not-In-My-BackYard (NIMBY) opposition, rooftop solar installations are usually welcomed or ignored. With transmission bottlenecks in the U.S. (and Europe) imminent, experts like Jigar Shah, SunEdison’s resident maven, believe distributed rooftop solar generation may soon be the only thing between consumers and power failures. (See GRIDLOCK?)

A PPL project. (click to enlarge)

PPL, Schering-Plough Developing the Largest Rooftop Solar Installation in the U.S.
May 12, 2008 (PR Newswire)

WHO
PPL Renewable Energy, a division of PPL Energy Services Group (Paul T. Champagne, president); Schering-Plough Corporation

A PPL project. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
PPL will design, install and operate a 1.7-megawatt rooftop solar system for Schering-Plough, the largest rooftop solar installation in the U.S.

WHEN
- Schering-Plough Corp aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 5% by 2012.
- The solar installation is expected to be operational by the end of 2008.
- PPL has been developing solar and landfill gas-to-electricity projects since 2002. It has $100 million worth of such projects scheduled over the next 5 years.

A PPL project. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- The Schering-Plough installation will be in Summit, NJ.
- PPL, headquartered in Allentown, Pa., is accruing solar energy throughout New Jersey and the 13-state mid-Atlantic and Northeastern PJM Interconnection power market. It will also spend $500 million to develop 156 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity in Maine, Montana and Pennsylvania.

WHY
- With this project, PPL will own/control 10 megawatts of rooftop solar energy.
- PPL will build its huge system on 8 rooftops of the Schering-Plough campus.
- PPL EnergyPlus will purchase the renewable energy credits.
- Solar rooftop installations can help smooth the demand burden of “peak” demand periods when businesses typically require the most electricity.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
- Paul T. Champagne, president, PPL Energy Services Group: "PPL continues to increase its investment in renewable energy projects with a varied and growing portfolio of projects throughout New Jersey, the mid-Atlantic and New England…Continued competition in the electric market will help fuel the growth of clean energy sources and make it possible for more projects like this to become a reality…"
- Steve Gabrielle, senior business development manager, PPL Renewable Energy: "Solar energy technology helps reduce clients' operating costs by using a reliable and renewable power source to meet their energy needs…Schering-Plough will be able to use the clean energy supplied by the solar panels to meet about 12 percent of its peak energy needs."