Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 2:38:23 PM - by Nate Lew

Business owners and others in New Jersey and elsewhere may be able to profit from a solar energy plan recently unveiled by regional utility company PSE&G.

Earlier this year, the Solar 4 All program was approved by New Jersey utility officials, allowing PSE&G to develop 80 megawatts of solar resources at a cost of about $515 million in the next several years.

Under the plan, solar arrays can be placed on any public or private site, from homes to businesses, with the utility paying rent to property owners. According to PSE&G, it will own the arrays and their energy output, and property owners will not be charged for their participation.

People interested in the program will need as much as 50,000 square feet of unobstructed roof space to hold a 500 kilowatt solar array. A single facility will be allowed to generate as much as 2 megawatts of electricity.

Generally, projects such as this one use the distributed solar energy model, which creates a large amount of electricity by placing panels on a variety of things, including rooftops and telephone poles. This contrasts with utility scale solar energy projects where a large amount is generated in one place and which can sometimes be more difficult when it comes to factors like permitting.