It
seemingly started on the roofs of homes and businesses. In the 1980s, you may have
noticed flat panels that looked like unwatchable new-age TV screens. They
didn’t exactly catch on.
But now,
you’re more likely to notice a field full of panels, tilted to catch the best
rays of sun. They’re in a crowd, dozens or hundreds of these panels, on school
grounds, next to businesses, in the middle of former farmfields. There, without
noise or fanfare, or even emissions, is the dawn of Pennsylvania’s solar energy
future.
We’re still
catching our breath as we’ve grown into a natural gas powerhouse (number two in
the country). But that doesn’t mean that Pennsylvania shouldn’t be just as eager
to catch the rays of the most abundant renewable energy source there is -- the
sun.
At DEP,
we’re not just eager, we’re committed to boosting that energy capability. We
intend to see solar move from its modest position in Pennsylvania, generating
only .15 percent of the electricity consumed in the state. We’ve set an
aspirational goal of having 10 percent of in-state electricity sales
generated by in-state solar energy by 2030.
How do we
get there? Together. We’ve received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot
Initiative to create a planning process we call Finding
Pennsylvania’s Solar Future.
You
probably haven’t heard of it yet, but we hope you’ll soon see solar energy
innovation everywhere -- in new solar manufacturing plants, creating new energy
jobs in the state; in new rows of solar panel installations small and large; and
in ways we haven’t yet imagined -- through new innovations, investments and
incentives.
As Acting
Secretary Patrick McDonnell recently said, “In the
same way Pennsylvania is currently a leader in fossil fuel energy, we want to
be a leader in solar.”
You can
find out a lot more about Finding
Pennsylvania’s Solar Future on our website and by contacting us at ra-eppasolarfuture@pa.gov. And
plan to join our second project meeting, June 8, at Carnegie Mellon University.
The agenda and registration will be on the Finding Pennsylvania’s
Solar Future website soon.
We hope you’ll
get involved, and help us all find Pennsylvania’s solar future.