Trenton – Senate President Steve Sweeney attended the opening ceremony for Six Flags Great Adventure’s solar field. The innovative and forward-looking solar field, built by KDC Solar, is the largest net metered solar project in New Jersey and will supply nearly all of the park’s electrical load with clean, renewable energy.
“Clean energy is the future. We need to do everything we can to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources,” said Senator Sweeney (D-Gloucester/Salem/Cumberland). “Through green energy legislation and a major push for offshore wind New Jersey is moving in the right direction, but government can’t do this alone. We need leaders in the business community and projects like this to help us meet the ultimate goal of becoming a more environmentally sustainable state. Clean energy technologies are not only good for the environment, they are good for the economy. They produce new jobs in a growing sector.”
The solar field is composed of 40 acres of ground mounted solar panels as well as solar carports over select parking lots. The field will generate 23.5 megawatts of power and will spare the atmosphere 1.5 million tons of carbon particles per year.
The Senate President joined a large number of attendees at the ribbon cutting, including: former New Jersey Governor James Florio, Senator Bob Smith, Senator Samuel Thompson, Assemblyman Robert Clifton, Assemblyman Ronald Dancer and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo.
“I am excited to see this project up and running, it is crucial that we shift to more renewable resources, not only as a state but as a world. This is a testament to the value of green energy and the benefits there are to businesses deciding to be sustainable,” said Senator Smith (D-Middlesex/Somerset), who chairs the Senate Environment Committee. “I am grateful Six Flags has made this commitment to shrinking their carbon foot print and I hope more commercial entities around the state will follow their lead.”
Construction began on the project in September of 2018 and was completed with more than 99,000 hours of union labor. The environmental benefits of the project will be equivalent to providing power for 2,787 homes for a year or removing approximately 108,000 cars from the road.
(Photo Attached, from left: KDC Solar Executive Vice President and COO, Tom Lynch; Senate President Steve Sweeney; Senator Bob Smith; Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo; KDC Solar President and CEO, Alan Epstein; Six Flags Great Adventure President, John Winkler; Len Turtora; Andrew Wheeler; Tim Boyer; Dr. William Rives; Mike Fatovic and Senator Samuel Thompson)