The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a national effort to make solar energy affordable for all Americans through research and development efforts in collaboration with public and private partners. Pennsylvania has many supported projects contributing to this mission. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection provides a list of all SunShot Initiative Projects in Pennsylvania.
Finding Pennsylvania’s Solar Future
“Finding Pennsylvania’s Solar Future” is a statewide planning project led by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and funded by a $550,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Program. Currently Pennsylvania produces less than 1% of the electricity we use from solar. The goal of this project is to create a shared vision for the most effective way to raise our solar production to 10%, and more.
The project is open to the public, including information, events and webinars. For more information see Finding Pennsylvania’s Solar Future.
Keystone Solar Future Project
This $3M PPL project will smoothly integrate increasing amounts of customer-owned solar generation into our electric grid to ensure continued safe, reliable, affordable service for all customers. Awarded in 2017, the company plans to launch a pilot program to connect hundreds of new private solar installations by 2020, and will demonstrate the ability to utilize this generation to improve reliability and reduce electricity costs for all customers. The pilot program will focus on the Lancaster area, which has been an especially active region for solar installations because of the amount of sun it receives and marketing by solar developers.
This project was the topic of MAREA’s October 2017 TEKPark Meeting. Nicole Lacouve, PPL Electric, Research and Development Engineer was the speaker and her presentation is available for download.
For information about all the Pennsylvania projects, see Finding Pennsylvania’s Solar Future.