The concerns of West Windsor residents were addressed by Mercer County Community College President Patricia C. Donohue in a letter to Mayor Hsueh dated Tuesday, May 15. With the project now slated to get underway in June and have construction continue throughout the summer, MCCC also released facts and figures to clarify any misconceptions.
— The project will occupy 45 acres of a 67-acre parcel of land belonging to the college.
— The project size will be eight megawatts, producing an amount of electricity that could power 850 homes a year. This amount of energy would offset 70 percent of the college’s annual electricity usage.
– All the electricity generated by the project will be supplied directly to MCCC.
– The project will be “net-metered” meaning that the solar field will supply electricity to MCCC at a connection point behind the college’s PSE&G utility electricity meter.
– The project will not be selling wholesale electricity to the electric grid. All solar projects in New Jersey utilize net-metering, and net-metering laws prohibit a project from generating more electricity than the host facility can utilize on an annual basis. Donohue notes that “for this reason, the project was sized to generate less energy than MCCC uses on an annual basis.”
Finally, Donohue provided a word on the lease agreement with SunLight General Mercer Solar: “The ownership of the Project has been structured as a lease- purchase transaction. The Mercer County Improvement Authority (MCIA) is the title owner of the project under state law. The MCIA and MCCC have entered into a 15- year lease with Sunlight General. The lease transfers all benefits and burdens of ownership to SunLight General, including the right to sell energy to MCCC. SunLight General is able to offer energy from the project to MCCC at a rate of 3 cents per kilowatt hour as opposed to the 14 cents per kilowatt hour that MCCC currently pays to its local utility, PSE&G.”
