Here’s what Gov. Murphy and lawmakers must do to restore a once-thriving industry
By Rodger Ferguson in NJ Spotlight News
New Jersey’s solar industry is collapsing. Installations are down, the solar pipeline is shrinking and thousands of jobs are at risk. This distressing reality is set out in black and white in a recently released report prepared by Sustainable Energy Advantage, LLC (SEA).
Gov. Phil Murphy’s 2019 Energy Master Plan set the stage for New Jersey to achieve 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050. The master plan concluded that New Jersey could meet this goal by reaching 20.64 GW dc of solar installations by 2035. To get there, the state needs to incentivize the installation of approximately 1,140 MW dc, annually, from 2020 to 2035.
Unfortunately, New Jersey installations have declined by an average of 10%-15% per year for the past four years. The projection for 2022 is 280 MW dc — the lowest total since 2015 and only about 25% of the Energy Master Plan’s target. Unless something changes, drastically and immediately, it will be all but impossible for the state to meet its solar installation targets.
The solar industry is a multibillion-dollar industry in New Jersey, with over 6,000 people employed. In years past, the state ranked first in the country in solar installations. Based on current projections, it will fall to 21st within five years. According to the SEA report, whereas New Jersey once ranked first in the country in solar jobs, it has now slipped to 12th. In addition to Gov. Murphy’s ambitious and important clean-energy goals, thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of investment in the state are at risk.
Although many factors contribute to the rate of solar installations, including equipment costs and interconnection delays, the SEA report notes that, at the same time New Jersey’s solar market is contracting, installation rates across the country are rising. In fact, in the same period (2019-21) that New Jersey’s solar market contracted by 23%, the U.S. solar market expanded by 78%. The report concludes that “NJ-specific characteristics and policy choices are the primary drivers of recent trends.”
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