Riverside Renewable Energy Project Receives Rebate from the U.S. Treasury Department

The officials of Gloucester Marine Terminal have received an $11 million federal tax credit rebate from the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the newly completed rooftop solar power plant project. The Holt family owns the Gloucester Marine Terminal.

Renewable Energy Project Receives Rebate from the U.S. Treasury Department" />

The $42 million Riverside Renewable Energy project comprises 27,526 photovoltaic rooftop solar panels that cover 1.1 million sq. ft. of the Gloucester Marine Terminal’s rooftop. About 9.0 MW of electricity is produced from the project which can provide power to over 1,500 houses.

The project is located at the rooftop of the refrigerated warehouse in the Terminal, which operates round the clock to serve food importers. On the East Coast area, the Terminal is the biggest on-dock refrigerated warehouse and consumes significant amount of power.

In June 2011, the project construction was started and completed before the schedule and within the budget. The project will produce around 80% of the power required for the Terminal and is anticipated to counterbalance over 8100 t of CO₂, which is equal to removing 1200 cars off the road or planting 400,000 trees.

The award letter for the rebate was given by U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J. The rebate comes under the U.S. Treasury Department’s Section 1603 program, which was enacted in 2009 by the government to promote finance for clean energy technology.

The ground-breaking project has overcome many barriers like construction, finance, ecological, legal and technical problems, including the lapse on the part of the Homeland Security Department towards the Terminal and also the fact that the Terminal is a superfund site of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, the high wind location of the project on the Delaware River also presented a challenge.