By Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
After years spent touting its latest roller coasters and safari revamps, Six Flags Great Adventure has a new claim to fame: one of the world’s first solar-powered amusement parks.
The Jackson tourist destination is now almost entirely powered by a massive new collection of nearly 60,000 solar panels spans parking lots and 40 acres of previously unused land.
The panels, which cost more than $70 million to construct and were publicly unveiled Wednesday, soak up sunlight, convert it to 23.5 megawatts of electricity and provide 98% of the power needed to keep the sprawling theme park running. Whatever is not used is sent back to the grid.
The solar farm, built by KDC Solar, is now the largest net-metered solar array in the state (net-metered means the solar arrays send extra electricity back into the larger power grid).
“This project represents a giant step toward becoming a net-zero carbon facility,” said Six Flags Great Adventure Park President John Winkler.
State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the head of the state Senate’s environment committee, praised the park’s switch to solar as a model that should be replicated statewide.
“We should be doing one of these every week in New Jersey,” Smith said.
Construction on the solar array began in early 2018, after a long legal battle over the clear-cutting of forests required for the project.
The project originally called for 100 acres of forests to be removed to make room for a solar farm near the park’s safari attraction. Environmental groups challenge that plan, arguing that it altered too much of the natural landscape. Forty acres of trees were ultimately cut to accommodate about half the panels used for the entire project.
“Six flags will get a solar farm while we get to preserve forested lands, everyone wins today,” said Jeff Tittel, New Jersey Sierra Club Director. “New Jersey could have the first amusement park in the country powered by solar power.”
Related news stories:
More on Great Adventure solar success story from a grateful Jackson Township resident
Six Flags Great Adventure announces park now ‘almost fully’ solar-powered (Philly Voice)
Six Flags Great Adventure unveils massive Jackson solar farm (Asbury Park Press)
