Here comes the sun and, in New Jersey, we’re all right. (With apologies to George Harrison)

Most anyone who made it through elementary school science classes knows that the sun is a giant ball of glowing gases. It is the largest object in our solar system and located at its center, with the Earth orbiting 93 million miles away from it.

Though it is massive, the sun still isn’t as large as other types of stars, according to NASA, so it is classified as a dwarf yellow star. Yet it keeps the Earth warm enough for living things to thrive and humans have been attempting to harness its energy as modern solar power for nearly two centuries.

Today, New Jersey is a national leader when it comes to installed solar PV (photovoltaics) – rooftop solar on homes and businesses that produces electricity directly from solar energy.  The DEP’s Air Quality, Energy and Sustainability program reports that, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, New Jersey is ranked seventh in the United States for totaled installed solar PV capacity (in front of the Garden State are California, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Texas). New Jersey is ranked first on a total installed solar PV capacity per square mile basis.

And now, a look at 2011 …

In 2011, New Jersey saw a record amount of solar energy capacity installed – 446.8 megawatts in a single calendar year – and surpassed 10,000 solar arrays statewide. These were significant milestones that, for a time, put New Jersey in second place, behind California, for both installed solar capacity and number of installations.

The achievement demonstrated New Jersey’s leadership as one of the largest and fastest growing solar energy markets in the United States.

The explosive growth of solar energy in New Jersey, starting around 2010, is widely attributed to early and aggressive state incentives – especially its Solar Renewable Energy Certificate program, which was launched in 2005 and was the first such program in the world.

Though some states have managed to catch up in the intervening years, New Jersey remains among the top 10 states for total installed solar PV capacity, with more than 3.2 gigawatts from more than 123,000 individual solar PV installations.

The 2011 record for single-year installations was not broken until 2019, with 447 megawatts (MWdc) of solar capacity commencing commercial operations that year.

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