The governor of the US state of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, has signed a new legislation that seeks to build 3GW of new community solar by 2029.
Under legislation S4530/A5768, the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) will launch registration by 1 October 2025 to seek additional community solar capacity.
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“Community solar has delivered real benefits for working families across New Jersey, but our current limits on project development are holding back its full potential,” said senator Vin Gopal, one of the sponsors of Bill S4530/A5768.
“This bill modernises the program to meet today’s needs, cutting red tape, creating savings, and accelerating our clean energy transition. At a time of rising electricity costs, we should be making it easier, not harder, to build local solar projects that lower bills and reduce strain on our grid,” added Gopal.
The governor of New Jersey also passed another piece of legislation, A5267/S4289, setting a transmission-scale energy storage incentive programme. The initiative seeks to expedite the installation of new clean energy capacity and lower costs for New Jersey’s energy customers, while reaching the state’s target of 2GW operational energy storage by 2030.
These pieces of legislation enable the rapid expansion of New Jersey’s community solar programme and the swift creation of new energy storage facilities. Under the Murphy administration, operational solar PV capacity has increased from 2.4GW to 5.2GW.
The governor’s office claims that rising energy costs in the state result from mismanagement by the regional grid operator, PJM. Earlier this year, Murphy called for a formal investigation “into the energy cost crisis facilitated by PJM”.
This story was first published on our sister site Energy-storage.news.
