Balcony Solar Can Offset Home Power Needs
New Jersey lawmakers passed landmark legislation in July to allow “plug-in solar” systems for homeowners and renters. Plug-in solar systems are generally one or two-panel solar systems that can be affixed to home balconies or exteriors very simply. The electricity generated is fed into the home’s electrical system and helps to offset energy drawn from the grid.
Balcony solar can provide for only a fraction of a home’s electricity needs, but even that, over time, can add up to savings. It has been estimated that a plug-in solar system can pay for itself in as little as three years.
Plug-in solar systems, in the aggregate, can generate large volumes of clean energy, across a footprint of many homes, and this is partly the appeal for state officials and clean energy advocates. These solar systems can be so numerous as to represent utility scale power production. They have been successfully implemented in Europe, where they are highly popular.
The plug-in solar bill had not been signed into law by Gov. Mikie Sherrill as of this writing. An April FDU poll found nearly 80% of New Jerseyans support plug-in solar.
“New Jersey must ensure that our energy policies are able to lower costs for our residents, and this law is a direct step toward that goal,” said Sen. John McKeon. “Plug-in solar puts clean, affordable energy within reach of every household in the state.”
“Passage of The Garden State Plug-In Solar Act is a great step forward toward expanding access to clean, affordable energy in New Jersey,” said Sierra Club NJ Chapter Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot.
Sierra Club Urges Government Leaders to Protect Keyport
The former Aeromarine landfill is a smoking gun in a suspected cancer cluster developing in Keyport, NJ.
At a community action meeting with hundreds of people in Keyport, the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club called on local, state, and federal officials to find sustainable solutions for the borough that protect the residents of Keyport and surrounding communities from this threat.
Sierra Club demanded effective cleanup, smart, long-term solutions for the site, and robust legislative action to address decades of hazardous leakage.
Currently, the community is awaiting environmental test results from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the New Jersey Department of Health, and Excel, an independent environmental testing firm hired by Keyport. Town leaders must proactively prepare sustainable, safe alternatives if the final data proves that a redevelopment proposal for the site is too dangerous.
“The Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter strongly opposes corporate-driven redevelopment shortcuts at the Keyport Aeromarine landfill. With over 400 local families reporting cancer cases, we insist that no redevelopment permits should even be considered until the state completes a rigorous exposure pathway analysis,” said Taylor McFarland, a resident of Keyport and the conservation program manager for the Sierra Club NJ Chapter.
“This contamination has been going on for decades. That is long enough for our government representatives to find solutions,” she said.
Green Acres Bill Would Prohibit Artificial Turf
The Senate Environment Committee unanimously released S3254 (Mukherji/Greenstein), which would prohibit the use of Green Acres funds for the purchase, use, installation, or replacement of artificial turf fields.
In recent years, the Green Acres program has spent millions in public funding on artificial fields, including $10 million in 2023 and another $4 million in 2025. This legislation is essential for ensuring that Green Acres funds are strictly dedicated to conservation and safe recreation, as well as for protecting our environment and public health.
The current use of state tax dollars for artificial turf not only undermines conservation efforts but also raises significant environmental concerns. One artificial turf field contains approximately 40,000 pounds of plastic, equivalent to 2.4 million plastic water bottles. Alarmingly, up to 8% of the field’s plastic grass blades may break off each year, entering our local ecosystems.
Public health hazards, waste, extreme heat effects, and costs are other reasons why artificial turf fields are a bad deal for New Jersey. On summer days, for example, artificial surfaces can reach temperatures up to 70 degrees hotter than natural grass, and for a standard artificial turf field, towns and schools may face a replacement cost of about $2.7 million every 10 years, compared with just $430,000 in maintenance costs for natural grass.
“The Green Acres program was created to protect New Jersey’s natural environment, not to pave it over with plastic,” said Taylor McFarland, conservation program manager for the NJ Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Governor Signs Key Bills on Data Centers, Energy
This summer, Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed several landmark energy affordability bills, among them the Data Center Tariff Bill (S731, Burzichelli); A796, Bailey), which is critical to ensuring big tech pays its fair share of energy infrastructure and generation costs.
This bill will require electric utilities to develop and apply special tariffs for large-load data centers to protect ratepayers from these costs.
Sherrill also signed the RTO Adder Bill (S1673, Zwicker; A2757, Katz), which ends the superfluous payment of taxpayer dollars to NJ electric utilities simply for being a part of the PJM Interconnection grid. These payments no longer serve any viable purpose as an incentive.
Additionally, the Advanced Grid Technologies Bill (S4411, Zwicker; A5188, Miller), was signed. This requires utilities to get state approval before building certain transmission projects. It also speeds up regulatory review of projects that use technologies that can increase the capacity of existing power lines.
NJ Leaders Demand a Grid That Answers to Ratepayers
In July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) convened a daylong technical conference in Washington to examine how PJM Interconnection governs itself and who gets a real say in its decisions. PJM is the regional grid operator for all of New Jersey, 12 other states, and the District of Columbia.
“We’ll be watching closely for FERC to move from listening to acting,” said New Jersey Sierra Club Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot.
The conference comes after a period of record-shattering electricity cost increases. Those costs began flowing into bills in June 2025, when some New Jersey households saw increases of up to 20%.
“In Jersey, people are having to choose between groceries or their energy bill—this is what happens when monopolies at the top put profits over people without any effective oversight,” said Sen. Andy Kim. “We need transparency, accountability, and real solutions from PJM about how they plan to bring costs down for millions of people and stop price gouging those who simply should not have to live like this.”
Sen. Andrew Zwicker said PJM has failed to manage surging electricity demand from data centers and allowed more cost-effective clean energy projects to languish in a years-long interconnection queue.
NJ Delays Vital Climate Rules and Legislation
Over the Fourth of July weekend, New Jersey was hit by a days-long, record-breaking heatwave, with many towns experiencing temperatures as high as 105 degrees, and yet amid this latest evidence of rapid climate change, New Jersey put the brakes on resilience measures that could save lives and property.
The NJ PACT REAL rules, a package of protections, would ensure new buildings are constructed above FEMA flood levels. The rules were officially adopted in January of this year and were set to be implemented in late July. However, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced in June that the rules would be delayed one year to ensure a “balanced framework and achieved permitting efficiency.”
NJ.com has estimated that 29 New Jerseyans have lost their lives due to the extreme temperatures over the Fourth weekend, and at least one person died in the New Jersey flash flooding.
The intense weather also resulted in countless NJ Transit delays.
“The Fourth of July in New Jersey usually marks the kickoff of summer celebrations across the state. Instead, what we saw was climate chaos—dangerous heat, public transit delays, intense thunderstorms, and life-threatening flash flooding, said Sierra Club NJ Chapter Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot.
“We need urgent action now to protect residents from not only the very real, physical danger of climate events, but also the financial and emotional burden left after storms,” she said.
This past summer, the NJ Legislature failed to post and vote on the Make Polluters Pay for an Affordable NJ Act, (A3735 (Collazos-Gill) /S2338 (McKeon), a critical piece of legislation that would not only hold polluters accountable but also generate funding for climate change adaptation and resiliency projects, like flood protection, stormwater protection, and transportation infrastructure.
The summer’s devastating extreme heat and flash flooding have been a warning that climate change is no longer a distant threat.
Sierra Club urges the Legislature, the Sherrill administration, and the state Department of Environmental Protection to work together to enact and move forward these lifesaving accountability and resilience measures.