Over the next 15 years, Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township expects to save a whopping $800,000 once its new 1-megawatt solar farm is up and running.
Not too far away, a 4-acre solar farm is already supplying power to South Hunterdon Regional High School, representing a saving of about $39,000 this year alone.
But although the two installations in Hunterdon County are a powerful testament to the efficiency and economy of renewable energy, New Jersey as a whole is not keeping pace when it comes to relying on the sun’s energy.
The National Solar Job Census is out with its 2017 report, and the picture isn’t pretty.
The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit which monitors the use of solar power, said this week that while the rest of the country has witnessed a 25 percent increase in job growth in the solar sector, the Garden State has lost jobs – more than 1,000 of them, NJSpotlight reported.
These Central Jersey H.S. have gone solar
Where formerly we led the nation in the use of solar energy, we’ve now fallen to ninth place in terms of solar jobs. Many of the green jobs we once counted on to bolster our economy are migrating to neighboring states.
This in a year when one of out every 50 new jobs created throughout the country was created by the solar industry, according to the damning report.
“New Jersey’s solar market is contracting because other states have leapfrogged ahead of us,” said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey.
Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, puts the blame solely at the feet of Gov. Chris Christie and his administration’s love affair with fossil fuels.
“When our governor first came into office, he crashed the solar market, cutting solar jobs in half, and then pulled us out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, losing us another 1,800 jobs,” Tittel said in a statement after the report was issued.
He was referring to the initiative known as RGGI, a multi-state agreement to cap and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by the power sector.
One hopeful sign among the gloom is a bill moving through the state Legislature that would establish a 25-member study commission to make recommendations to the governor and lawmakers on how to stave off a collapse in the solar industry.
Such a downturn occurred four years ago, when investments in new projects fizzled and thousands of jobs disappeared.
The bill, sponsored by state senators Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) and Christopher Bateman (R-Somerville), has passed that house and is awaiting action in the Assembly.
Given Christie’s abysmal track record, it’s probably foolish to wish for any positive action during his watch. But advancing solar energy is certainly an issue to which any future occupant of the Governor’s Office should be willing – no, eager – to commit.
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