Big Burst in the City’s Solar Energy Grid

“We’re really at the tipping point,” Laurie Reilly of Sustainable CUNY said in our September issue, referring to New York City’s embrace of solar energy, including co-ops and condos following the lead of small homeowners. “We’ve gone beyond the early adopters,” Reilly adds, “and now we’re moving into the mainstream.”

Now Reilly’s prediction is official. This year the city’s Department of Buildings expects to sign off on more than 3,000 solar projects – up from a mere 250 in 2012, Crain’s reports. This twelve-fold burst of solar energy was spread very unevenly over the five boroughs. Only four permits have been issued this year in Manhattan, more than three-quarters of all permits issued citywide in the past four years went to Queens and Staten Island, and permits issued in Brooklyn increased five-fold. Among the more prominent projects in that borough is the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which announced earlier this week that 3,000 solar panels have been installed on the roof of a building in the 300-acre waterside industrial complex. Subsidies, tax breaks, and the cheaper solar technology are contributing to a quickening rate of return on investments.

As Reilly noted, “People are shocked to find taht the payback time can be just five to seven years, depending on the size of the installation.”