New Jersey’s oldest and largest regulated gas and electric delivery utility, serving nearly 75 percent of the state’s commercial and residential buildings, recently announced the expansion of its Solar Loan Program.

The program, initiated in April of 2008, has so far seen $105 million in loans delivering 30 megawatts of installed solar capacity. New Jersey’s total installed capacity of 100 megawatts, through 4,340 projects, comes close to meeting the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) of 22.5 percent of energy coming from renewables by 2020 – 2.12 percent of that from solar alone.

The Solar Loan Program II, approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and expanded by $143 million, provides for another 51 megawatts of installed solar energy by:

• Loans on solar systems throughout PSE&G’s territory, with solar systems owned by the borrower (the developer or the customer
• Loans available for two years, on a first-come, first-served basis, until 51 megawatts of solar power projects have been facilitated, none to exceed 500 kilowatts.
• Loans to cover about half the cost of a solar system, depending on output and cost, with repayment over 10 years plus interest (for residential customers; others have 15 years).
• Remaining project costs funded by the owner of the system; i.e., the homeowner or the provider/installer/lessor, with additional tax credits available under ARRA and additional rebates from New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program.
• Loan repayment through cash or via Solar Renewable Energy Certificates, or SRECs, at one SREC per 1 megawatt of generation, with SREC value established as no less than the agreed-upon price established by the BPU (beginning at $450 for residential systems, $410 for commercial systems less than 500 kilowatts, and $380 for commercial systems over 500 kilowatts). These floor prices will be reduced by about 3 to 6 percent semi-annually.
• Payments will be made through the RGGI Recovery Charge (RRC), included in the delivery part of monthly bills, with credits for SRECs auctioned by PSE&G applied to customer’s bills.
• The average residential customer (722 kilowatt hours a month in summer, or 6,960 kilowatt hours a year) will pay an additional 0.36 cents more per year.

PSE&G has also begun to implement its Solar 4 All program, investing $515 million in 80 megawatts of solar projects that will nearly double the state’s installed solar capacity. Under the Solar 4 All initiative, the utility will own and operate 80 megawatts of solar by 2013. Nearly half this capacity will be derived from individual solar units installed on 200,000 PSE&G utility poles in the state’s six largest cities – the largest such (pole-mounted, grid-tied) installation in the world.

The balance will come from PSE&G solar installations like solar farms and rooftop-mounted arrays, delivering enough electricity to power about 12,000 homes and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.7 million tons per year.