With so many of our towns committing to transition to 100% renewable energy, we thought it was time to look at solar trends. Thanks to Steve Clark of our Ready for 100 team in Delaware County, who turned GATS (Generation Attribute Tracking System) data from PJM and produced these charts.

If you’re more of a numbers person instead of a charts person, Steve also offers this tabulation about average system size and annual installation count.

2016 – 2020	Bucks	Chester	Delaware	Montgomery	Philadelphia
average MW installed per year	4.4	2.2	2	3.8	2.8
average number of installations per year	409	202	266	370	318

When compared with our neighboring state of New Jersey, however, our efforts appear dim. The chart below is sorted by total generating capacity, in megawatts (MW).

State	County	Number of installations	MW	population	square miles	MW per square mile	MW per 10,000 people	average KW per installation
NJ	Burlington	10,646	375	445,702	805	0.466	8.414	35.22
NJ	Camden	9,423	195	506,738	222	0.878	3.848	20.69
NJ	Gloucester	9,349	187	291,165	325	0.575	6.422	20.00
NJ	Mercer	4,523	173	367,922	226	0.765	4.702	38.25
DE	Kent	723	41	176,699	800	0.051	2.320	56.71
DE	New Castle	2,435	40	556,165	494	0.081	0.719	16.43
PA	Bucks	2,630	35	626,377	622	0.056	0.559	13.31
PA	Montgomery	2,506	33	808,946	487	0.068	0.408	13.17
PA	Chester	1,650	30	506,190	760	0.039	0.593	18.18
PA	Philadelphia	1,807	22	1,548,647	143	0.154	0.142	12.17
PA	Delaware	1,536	13	560,699	191	0.068	0.232	8.46

Within PA, Delaware and Philadelphia counties have the smallest average system size of 8.46 kW and 12.17 kW respectively, which seem to be in the range for residential systems. You’ll see that Philly has packed the most solar capacity per square mile, and Chester the most sprawled out, at 0.154 MW per square mile and 0.039 MW per square mile.

Here’s to a year spent changing these numbers. Please contact us with your interest and questions about transitioning to renewable energy — whether for your home or business.