Rutgers Is Warming To Solar Power

NJBIZ, Sep 29, 2008 by Gaudio, Thomas

Last Tuesday, Rutgers University broke ground on what is being touted as the largest campus-based solar energy facility in the country. Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick, state Board of Public Utilities commissioner Joseph L Fiordaliso and other officials gathered at a sevenacre site at the Livingston Campus where a $10 million, 1.4-megawatt solar farm will be constructed.

The facility, with its 7,000 solar panels, is expected to generate 10 percent of the electricity used at the campus. The university says it expects to save more than $200,000 in the solar farm's first year of operation.

The farm is expected to be operational by the spring. Rutgers says it will pay $5.1 million on construction, with the remainder subsidized by a rebate from the BPU's Clean Energy Program. -Thomas Gaudio