On November 3, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced that a statewide planning project, led by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, will equip the state to produce more solar energy and increase solar-generated in-state electricity sales to at least 10 percent by 2030.
The project, called “Finding Pennsylvania’s Solar Future,” was selected for a $550,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Beginning in January 2017, the state will convene a series of multi-stakeholder working groups that will meet regularly throughout 2017 to envision, debate, and hammer out possible scenarios for solar development and deployment in the Commonwealth. The result will be Pennsylvania’s Solar Future Plan, a primary resource on Pennsylvania’s approach to solar energy, informing the state’s Climate Change Action Plan and identifying potential compliance strategies with the federal Clean Power Plan.
The effort is expected to lower costs and barriers and accelerate the role of solar in the state’s energy economy. Pennsylvania ranks third in electricity generation in the United States, with solar currently accounting for less than one percent of the state’s net electricity generation.
