Federal Stimulus Solar Panels - Cherry Hill, NJ - Solar Power on Waymarking.com

Driving to work last week, I noticed many solar panels attached to highway lights along Haddonfield Road. I was pretty sure I never saw them before. A few days ago, in front of my highway side apartment, I observed a large truck and bucket with a police car accompaniment along the side of the road. They were installing another series of these panels along Rt. 70. I ran back inside my apartment and retrieved my camera so I could catch them in the act and create a really cool waymark.

I interviewed a couple of the men who told me this is happening all over NJ and this is the first place (Cherry Hill) in the world where this type of initiative is being undertook. Here is how they work. The panel collect energy from the sun and is converted from DC to AC and then is fed directly into the electric grid on the pole via the power lines. Pretty neat, huh? Each panel produces less than 12 volts or a battery but have a huge wattage and collect a ton of energy. The guy told me it would be enough to power Cherry Hill and some neighboring jurisdictions for a 24 hour period.

Additionally, when all of these are up and running, our township will be buying less energy and saving money (which of course as taxpayers, we will never see). Also, By selling the electricity into the wholesale market, our utility expects to offset some of the cost of installing the panels. The panels are expected to generate 120 megawatts of electricity, one-third of which should come from the panels on utility poles. That amounts to barely 1 percent of the power consumed in the state, but is about 7 percent of the state’s goal of power generated from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Rather than waymark each individual solar panel, I am going to waymark individual roads, maybe one miles segments. This waymark covers the Ellisburg Circle (now Rt. 70 & Brace Road intersection) to the Race Track Circle (now Rt. 70 & Haddonfield Road intersection).