New Jersey Community Solar Heads to 16 Warehouse Roofs

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes · Last updated: 6 November 2026

Faropoint owns industrial buildings used for local delivery and distribution. It has started building the first of 16 New Jersey community solar projects that will sit on its warehouse roofs. Together the arrays add up to more than 10 megawatts. The opening project is a 1.6 MW rooftop system at 19-05 Nevins Road in Fair Lawn. The other 15, worth about 8.5 MW, already hold places in the state's Community Solar Energy Program. Households that subscribe will receive credits on their electricity bills. Faropoint says at least half of each project's capacity is set aside for low- and moderate-income customers. No completion dates, prices or sign-up details have been announced.

Utilizing previously unused portions of our buildings allows us to support the communities where we invest.

Brian Nave, vice president of asset management and renewable energy, Faropoint

Why Faropoint Is Putting Solar on Its Warehouse Roofs

A big warehouse roof is mostly open, flat and unused, which is exactly what a solar array needs. Covering it with panels gives the building a second job, producing electricity, and that job requires no extra land. The panels sit on a structure that already exists, so nothing new has to be cleared to make room for them.

Faropoint's portfolio is built around last-mile industrial space, buildings that serve local delivery and distribution networks. Brian Nave, the company's vice president of asset management and renewable energy, presented the effort as a way to give something back where the firm owns buildings. "Utilizing previously unused portions of our buildings allows us to support the communities where we invest," Nave said.

Faropoint is not doing the technical planning alone. SolarKal, an independent solar adviser, is working with the company on the portfolio. The performance estimates published so far come from the two firms jointly, not from a regulator or an outside audit, and they should be read that way until the arrays are actually producing power.

How the 16 Projects Add Up to More Than 10 MW

Construction has begun at 19-05 Nevins Road in Fair Lawn, where a 1.6 MW array is going onto the roof. It is the first project in the group to break ground, and Faropoint has not said when it will be finished.

The remaining 15 projects total about 8.5 MW and have all been accepted into New Jersey's Community Solar Energy Program. Nine of them already have clearance to start construction, which leaves six still waiting on that step. Added to the Fair Lawn array, the pipeline comes to roughly 10.1 MW, consistent with Faropoint's description of more than 10 MW.

Faropoint and SolarKal expect the full set to generate around 12.7 million kilowatt-hours a year once every array is running. That works out to approximately 1,260 kWh per kilowatt of installed capacity, a rough yield figure that makes the estimate easier to compare with other rooftop systems. The firms also project the portfolio will avoid about 8,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.

What Community Solar Subscribers Actually Receive

Community solar lets a household sign up for a share of a solar installation located somewhere else and receive credits on its electricity bill in return. Subscribers never mount panels at home. That makes the model useful for renters and for owners whose roofs cannot host an array.

Faropoint says at least half of each project's capacity will go to low- and moderate-income households. New Jersey sets the floor slightly higher, at 51%, so the company's wording is looser than the rule itself. Because the projects sit inside the state program, the share reserved for those households has to reach 51% at a minimum.

What a subscription will cost, and how much it will save, is still unknown. Faropoint and SolarKal have published no subscription prices and no enrollment details. Until they do, a household has no way to judge the offer on its own terms or compare it with other community solar options in the state.

New Jersey Has Cleared Space for 3,000 MW More

In March 2026 the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved a further 3,000 MW of community solar program capacity. That is enough to serve about 450,000 subscribers, which implies roughly 6.7 kW of capacity for each subscriber.

When that approval came, the program had already produced $14 million in net savings for more than 37,000 subscribers. Spread evenly, that comes to at most about $380 per subscriber. The figure is cumulative rather than annual, and the savings were not necessarily shared equally among participants.

Set against that expansion, Faropoint's portfolio is small. About 10.1 MW is roughly a third of one percent of the new 3,000 MW allocation. Its interest lies less in scale than in the template it offers: a property owner turning existing industrial roofs into shared generation instead of building new arrays on open land.

What could help or hold back the portfolio

The bottom line

Faropoint's warehouse program shows how New Jersey community solar can grow on buildings that are already standing. One 1.6 MW array is under way in Fair Lawn, nine more projects can begin construction, and six still need that clearance. The headline benefits, 12.7 million kWh a year and 8,500 metric tons of avoided carbon dioxide, are the companies' own projections and will only be tested once the arrays run. The gaps that matter most to households are practical ones: when the systems switch on, what a subscription costs and how to enroll. Those answers will decide whether the portfolio becomes a real bill saving or stays a promising pipeline on paper.

What to watch

• Watch for Faropoint to name a completion date for the 1.6 MW Fair Lawn array; none has been announced.
• Watch for subscription prices and enrollment details for the 16-project portfolio, which Faropoint and SolarKal have not released; no date has been set.
• Watch whether the six remaining projects receive clearance to begin construction; no timetable has been given.