They might take a little getting used to, but I don’t see New Jersey’s utility-pole solar panels as eyesores.
Like a massive Christo project but without the advance publicity, installations have been popping up across New Jersey for about a year now, courtesy of New Jersey’s largest utility, the Public Service Electric and Gas Company. Unlike other solar projects tucked away on roofs or in industrial areas, the utility is mounting 200,000 individual panels in neighborhoods throughout its service area, covering nearly three-quarters of the state.
The solar installations, the first and most extensive of their kind in the country, are part of a $515 million investment in solar projects by PSE&G under a state mandate that by 2021 power providers get 23 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. If they were laid out like quilt pieces, the 5-by-2.5-foot panels would blanket 170 acres.
New Jersey is second only to California in solar power capacity thanks to financial incentives and a public policy commitment to renewable energy industries seeded during Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s administration.
Personally, I’m proud of my birth-state (yes, I have a certificate). I think people will adjust to the look and won’t notice them much more than they notice the poles on which they are mounted.
What do you think? Would you freak out if one of those panels showed up unannounced in your front-yard?
People probably complained (I know of one prominent one who did – Tesla) when power companies started putting up powerlines, spoiling large corridors of our landscape throughout the country.
If we want alternative energy, we have to deal with some eyesores. Remember the protests re the wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts? I think there are better and worse places to do things. I mean, you don’t want a solar farm in Yosemite! But New Jersey is not Yosemite. 😉 Bring it on, I say.
What a shame for humanity that Tesla’s financial backers pulled the plug on his Wardenclyffe power delivery project. Unlimited, free wireless power (plus 21st C-type worldwide communications) could have been ours a century ago thanks to Tesla’s genius — no more wires, poles and pollution of various kinds — but for some powerful greedy people who wanted to continue to make a profit.
When we looked into solar for our roof, we were told that our neighbors tall tree rendered us ineligible because any shadows that fell across the panels shut down the entire circuit due to the way that most are wired.
The problem I have with the panels going up (I live in NJ) is not that they’re an eye sore… it’s that they’re installed below large wires and other shadow creating objects that (if the explanation I received is accurate) will render many of them completely useless. If you look at them, they’re not installed on top of the pole above the wires… they’re farther down underneath the main wire strand.
I’d be curious to know if there was a reason for this and if these things even work given that they spend most of their day with a big shadow somewhere on their surface.
This is actually part of my design project. Along with a high altitude wind turbine, we’re also looking into the concept of solar balloons to get around the shadows. Here’s a concept in the works:
http://inhabitat.com/files/solarballoonsbig.jpg
I read an article recently in a magazine that arrived unsolicited in my mailbox (so I can’t link to it). It talked about the cost-effectiveness of installing solar panels under different scenarios (cost of installation, amount of energy produced, future cost of fuel, and differences in state laws.
It described different types of solar panels. And one type doesn’t have the problem with a shadow on one part of the panel killing production in other parts. In other words, the shadow problem is far less pronounced in these panels. They’re newer and probably more expensive. They might be less attractive, too. But they exist.
The problem, we were told, was that the panels were set up in an array so if one failed the entire array failed…
We were told that there were options available that involved each panel operating independently, but that would require us to have a converter for each panel which was wildly expensive.
This was only last year so I’m not sure what advancements have been made but if they have started to make these things more efficient and less “dumb” (and, yes, arranging panels in an all or nothing configuration so that a shadow from a half inch tree branch can shut the whole thing down is dumb) then hopefully at some point (probably when we’ll need to replace our roof in a few years) we’ll be able to go solar on our house.
I’ve been seeing them everywhere. I wondered what their purpose was, as I was used to seeing them running a radar gun or a street light. I gather the new ones are putting energy directly into the grid. The poles and wires are the eyesore, the panels just add interest. It exciting to see many of the big corporate offices in the area turning some of their Canada Goose feed lots (aka lawns) into solar panel fields. If I ever get two nickels to rub together, my south-facing roof is next!
Now if we can keep Governor Piggy’s head busy in the trough, he might leave this program alone.
Bingo. I look at that NJ picture and see all the ugly poles and powerlines drooping over the street and think how they ruin the view with their clutter. The rather lovely azure-blue solar panels tend to enhance the view, or at least take our eyes temporarily away from the actual ugly clutter of poles and wires.
I just don’t see the eyesore there.
Meanwhile, it’s all the poles and wires we need to be working to get rid of.
We’ve got wireless phones and wireless remote control and wireless computers — all very 21st century.
It’s long past time we got down to upgrading our 19th century power-delivery system.
But then what do we hang the panels on?? Axe the wires and leave the poles..
I was traveling along a deserted country road, skirting a mountainside over a wild valley of brilliant green, when I came upon a warning sign topped with a solar panel. I was thrilled.
Considering how much of our world is downright hideous and environmentally destructive, I’ll take a little more ugly for the big payoff. After all, we’re looking at far worse things here in the Catskills .. like hillsides populated by drilling rigs & open sewers for frack waste.
T. Boone Pickens is on public radio station WNYC right now, telling me I’d get used to it. He’s looking to invest in natural gas & comes off, frankly, as a dealer in used cars.
Boo, does that certificate have a raised seal?
A Democrat started it, that explains it.
From the article:
PSE&G officials said solar energy was still more expensive to produce than more traditional power sources and acknowledged that bills were going up 29 cents a month. Each panel produces 220 watts of power, enough to brighten about four 60-watt light bulbs for about six weeks. When complete, this project is expected to provide half of the 80 megawatts of electricity needed to power 6,500 homes.
This is what would upset me, not the “blight” caused by the panels. 40 MW is nothing, a drop in the bucket, and the cost is too damn high.
The eyes will no longer be sore upon the first brown or blackout when the lights stay on in solar supplied homes and the laughter of success will be heard instead.
You mean precious bodily fluid zapping panels.
Looking at the picture in the linked article, what struck me as ugly were the power lines themselves, cris-crossing the street to attach to the roofs of the homes on the other side. The solar panels aren’t so bad looking though.
Isn’t there a proposal to line interstate highway medians with solar panels? I seem to remember reading about this somewhere, but I couldn’t locate the article.
Lots of unused, already-developed space out there; thus, viewshed issues shouldn’t be too much of a headache. This utility-pole idea fits in nicely with that philosophy, imo.
There are lots of unused spaces that could be considered. Not a lot of shade at the landfills, for example.
But in highway medians I could imagine issues with reflections blinding drivers. You’d have to mount the panels very high to avoid this, driving up costs. Maybe on the south side of east-west freeways….
I don’t mind the panels themselves, but they’re at a bad height on the poles. I think they need to move up to be less conspicuous.
I agree that would help a lot aesthetically – and would make more poles usable for energy by raising panels above trees and rooflines. But, installation and maintenance costs probably increase with altitude.
They are very ugly. Much moreso than the poles themselves, which from street level are not too different from tree trunks. I don’t think it’s a question of getting used to the panels, either: the wires that preceded them and even the poles are narrow objects that one can see around, while the panels are…..panels, with surface area that blocks a chunk of your view and casts a large bulky shadow on the lawn or garden.
If people must their thermostats at 65F in July, and leave the lights and 600w plasma TV running all day, I guess we have to make some aesthetic compromises. But I do think the panels should be concentrated in “farms” – not just for aesthetic reasons, but consider the additional maintenance costs of having crews chase down problems all over the state instead of at a few central locations. I don’t see a lot of evidence that the utility has done much to develop the farm concept, and if they had communicated better with the public they might have been pushed in that direction.
You know what else is ugly?
Florida Power Co. offered us a discount if we let them install a cutoff switch on the water heater and a/c in our home, so they could shut them off and save power during overload times. That program worked well for all involved.
Seems like these folks could try offering to put the panels out of sight on customer’s roofs. Some public notice would have been a nice thing to do.
at least Atlantic City Electric does. (possibly it’s linked to a federal program.)
That’s it?
170 acres and they won’t even get 23% of their power from it? We are so screwed.