Market for Solar Credits Drops as Residential Panels Increase

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

August 22, 2011 | 1:31 PM

William Thomas Cain / Getty Images

A solar panel in Brigantine, NJ powers the Marine Mammal Stranding Station.

Pennsylvania may be in the midst of a natural gas rush, but neighboring New Jersey has been experiencing a solar surge. Because of state incentives, New Jersey now rivals California in terms of solar power production. But as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports today, the Garden State may be a victim of its own success.
Solar producing residents of both Pennsylvania and New Jersey benefit from a program that allows them to sell solar credits to energy companies seeking to fulfill their alternative energy requirements. But with the rapid increase in residential and commercial solar power installations in New Jersey, the market for those credits has plummeted from $600 to $300 dollars in the last six months.