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Philadelphia solar farm for Navy Yard

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A great example of political leadership moving Philadelphia and PA into a greener economy.
Epuron USA will be developing the solar farm.
PA Environmental Secretary McGinty said had this to say in their latest newsletter :
In order to attract the international leaders we have to the state, and to lure other potential businesses, we realized we had to provide some guarantees that the markets they serve would exist. That’s where the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act comes in. By signing that bill in 2004, we created guaranteed markets for renewable energy producers. This is an approach that’s largely unique to Pennsylvania; many other states with renewable energy portfolio standards did not establish clear goals for different technologies, such as solar.
With completion of the Epuron project in southeastern Pennsylvania this fall, we’ll have more than 0.6 megawatt installed by the end of the year. And that’s just the beginning. Under the state’s renewable energy requirements, electricity from solar photovoltaics must account for one-half of 1 percent of all energy sold in Pennsylvania by 2021. This solar set-aside will result in the construction of at least 850 megawatts of new solar capacity; that will be an increase of more than 141,000 percent!

And because solar is still more expensive in relation to other energy sources, developing that technology faces more of a hurdle. Such is not the case in Pennsylvania. We have a clearly defined market for solar power, and companies that locate here will find the demand they need to succeed. It’s our requirements that has led the installed renewable capacity levels in Pennsylvania to grow so rapidly. Our success can also be measured in terms of sheer investment and employment figures. Because of our Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, we have attracted more than $1 billion in economic growth in projects that have helped create about 3,000 new jobs in the solar, wind and biofuels industries and other areas that support these sectors.

While we pride ourselves as the new North American home of firms like Conergy, Iberdrola and Gamesa, equally as exciting are the smaller to mid-size firms that are either start-ups or companies in their early growth stage. We have businesses like AE Polysilicon that will soon begin producing the polysilicon material used for solar cells and modules that convert solar energy into electricity, Axion Power International, which is an industry leader in the development of advanced batteries and energy storage devices, and Solar Power Industries, who is poised to become one of the nation’s largest producers of low-cost solar cells.

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