PSE&G completes solar plus storage project on former New Jersey landfill

Public Service Electric and Gas has built a 605 kW DC solar farm with 2,000 kWh Tesla batteries in the Borough of Highland Park, New Jersey, and has proposed building an additional 35 MW of energy storage to help the state meet its energy storage goals.

The solar-plus-storage system was built on the borough's former municipal landfill and has been placed into service, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

The Highland Park Solar Storage System combines a 1,764-panel solar farm with batteries where both the solar panels and batteries are connected directly to the PSE&G power grid, the investor-owned utility said.

The solar panels are expected to provide enough power for about 100 homes annually and charge the batteries, which will be used to reduce voltage fluctuations due primarily to issues like intermittent cloud cover.

"The information we gather from the Highland Park Solar Storage System also will enable better integration of renewable energy onto the electric grid in the future, allowing for even more solar energy projects in New Jersey," Karen Reif, PSE&G's vice president for Renewables and Energy Solutions, said.

New Jersey has an energy storage target of 600 MW by 2021 and 2,000 MW by 2030. The state had about 340 MW of lithium-ion battery storage system capacity installed, contracted or under construction as of May 2019, according to the New Jersey Energy Storage Analysis Final Report prepared by Rutgers University.

The Highland Park Solar Storage System is part of a 3 MW carve-out in PSE&G's Solar 4 All program, designed to develop projects that integrate solar with other technologies to reduce the impact of solar on the grid or to increase reliability and grid resiliency for critical facilities during prolonged power outages, according to the statement.

The value from the sale of the solar power and capacity into the PJM Interconnection wholesale electric markets, the solar renewable energy certificates that it generates, and the federal investment tax credits are used to help offset the program's costs, according to PSE&G's website.

The Solar 4 All program uses rooftops, parking lots, utility poles and landfills/brownfields for large-scale, grid-connected solar projects and the 35 Solar 4 All projects provide just over 153 MW DC of solar power, including the Highland Park project. The program aims to build 158 MW of solar capacity.

A PSE&G spokesman confirmed Wednesday the project is part of Solar 4 All and not part of a separately proposed $109 million investment to build an additional 35 MW of energy storage.