By Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul

The July 4th weekend’s extreme heat and violent storms were a striking reminder that our electrical grid in New Jersey is under more stress than it can handle.  We also need to come up with better ways to manage flood waters. Drivers became trapped in their cars on flooded roads. 

At the peak of the interruption, approximately 249,000 people were without power throughout the state. At the Shore, Monmouth County bore the brunt of the local outages on Saturday morning, with 40,005 out of 296,773 customers still without power. 

As temperatures hit 105 degrees Legislative District 11 worked to help hundreds of constituents. This work continued throughout the holiday weekend and into the week that followed as we  tried to get answers to when the lights and the air conditioning would be turned back on. 

We have an energy crisis in New Jersey. As state legislators, we’re trying to address both the current problems with the antiquated electrical grid, and look for future sources of energy supply. That’s why we sponsored legislation in the last legislative session that is now the law to make it easier to build solar energy facilities. The law now requires the Board of Public Utilities to open registration for an additional 3,000 megawatts of community solar projects. Along with our LD11 partner, Senator Vin Gopal, we were primary sponsors. 

The bill requires the board to accept and approve registrations until December 31, 2029 or beyond if it takes more time to completely register 3,000 megawatts of solar energy projects.

We also have supported legislation to modify the state's renewable energy incentive programs and require electric public utilities to consider interconnection applications for certain solar projects. The bill would allow “co-location” of solar facilities on two or more eligible solar facilities to be built on the same property or on contiguous properties. The Senate and Assembly passed the bill last month. It would also require that smaller capacity solar facilities located on commercial or industrial rooftops, landfills, contaminated sites, or mining sites be eligible for registration in the community solar program until December 31, 2028. It would also authorize the BPU to establish differentiated incentive levels for co-located projects.

We need to support and encourage municipalities in their efforts to work together to develop local solutions. We recently met with representatives of the governor’s office, the DEP permitting team, local business owners and chamber of commerce members in Asbury Park. We discussed ways to cut through red tape, streamline permitting, and support the New Jersey economy.

The July 4th storms, which dropped up to five inches of rain in parts of Monmouth County, underscored the need for towns to work together to find solutions to flooding. Storm water runoff and ebbing rivers and streams, not to mention the ocean, frequently close roads and flood basements in Shore communities. Flooding also causes millions of dollars in economic damages.

That’s why we’ve sponsored legislation to establish a municipal water infrastructure planning and design project grant program in DEP and appropriate $100 million to fund it. The maximum grant award per project would be $2 million. Municipalities would not be required to provide matching funds in order to be eligible for a grant. The DEP would provide priority to applications for projects located in overburdened communities, as well as criteria for evaluating applications.

 Addressing our state’s energy and flood management needs are two ways we can make New Jersey safer and more affordable. They remain high priorities for us.

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