New York Opens Data on Thousands of Solar Projects

nyserda

by | Aug 1, 2014

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nyserdaSolar companies and prospective commercial and residential customers can now view details of nearly 10,000 solar projects that have participated in New York’s open enrollment solar incentive programs over the past 10 years, including the ramp up of installations under the state’s NY-Sun initiative.

The data is publicly available on Open NY, the state’s open data portal. The information, which was released this week, is part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s strategy to support private sector scale-up of a sustainable solar industry driven by the market, not government subsidies, according to NYSERDA.

Solar companies frequently request this type of data, according to NYSERDA. They use the information to see which areas of New York to target based on where there is room for growth and expansion. Prospective customers can use the data set to compare installations, solar product manufacturers to understand market share in the state and academic researchers can use it for analyses and prospective customers. The New York Independent System Operator can now use the data to see the impact of solar on the grid by geographic area, according to the NYSERDA.

NYSERDA has also included on the Open NY site a map of installation locations and a stacked bar graph of megawatts installed by sector by countyThe data set, called Solar Photovoltaic Incentive Program, includes project applications and installations between 2003 and 2014 through NYSERDA’s open enrollment solar PV programs, which provide incentives to help reduce the installed cost of residential PV systems of up to 25 kilowatts and non-residential systems of up to 200 kilowatts.

In 2012, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a series of bills to launch NY-Sun, a program designed to bring more solar power to New York. The initial goal of the initiative was to double the amount of on-site electrical capacity produced in the state by solar PV in 2012 compared to 2011 and to quadruple that in 2013. 

Since NY-Sun was launched in 2012, a total of 316 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity has been installed or is under contract, more than was installed in the entire prior decade. Funding of nearly $1 billion was authorized through 2023 to meet a statewide target of 3 gigawatts of installed capacity, the NYSERDA said.

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