Solar power is a slowly growing piece of the energy picture in New York while offering jobs possibilities for all of the electrical bits and pieces other than the actual solar panels.
There is solar power used in the Empire State and the State Power Authority generates around two-and-a-half-megawatts itself although it really isn't in the solar business. Instead, it's working with NYSERDA, the state's energy research authority, to find ways to use solar to reduce conventional energy generation demand and to develop companies which supply the solar industry.
There are some and they are growing.
Guy Sliker is the New York State Power Authority's director of renewable energy and resources.
Sliker said there isn't a lot of solar with its intermittent nature coming into the electrical grid.
The incentives and the deployment around New York State are the customer side of the meter. They're considered like a customer resource and they really affect the system more like reducing load then. They do in terms of increase generation they really don't cause a lot of congestion on the transmission system," said Sliker.
Besides, Sliker saidwith the Niagara Power Project and a giant project along the Saint Lawrence, New York State gets 19-percent of its electricity from renewable hydropower.
