Northeast Philadelphia Airport could soon run on 100% solar power
A new solar farm, if approved, would generate approximately 3,000 megawatt hours of energy annually, effectively covering all of the airport's electrical needs.
A large solar array is being planned to fully power Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE).
A bill that still needs approval by City Council would authorize a contractor to build a 1.5-megawatt solar farm. In return, the city would purchase the energy for the airport for 25 years at a set rate.
It would become the largest municipal on-site solar project within city limits. There are larger privately run solar arrays.
The plan is a partnership between the city’s Department of Aviation, which manages both PNE and Philadelphia International Airport, and the Philadelphia Energy Authority.
“The Department of Aviation is committed to purchasing or generating 100% renewable energy through collaboration with the City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability,” Jessica Noon, sustainability manager for the airports, said at a hearing Tuesday by the council’s Committee on Transportation and Public Utilities.
Noon said Reactivate LLC, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Invenergy, will own the solar array. It will be responsible for construction, daily operations, and long-term maintenance.
Noon said that means the city bears no related costs, other than purchasing the energy, which cannot be sold elsewhere.
She said that will bring stability to the airport’s energy costs for decades, avoiding energy market volatility. She estimates it will result in $116,000 in energy savings over the life of the contract.
A 1.5-megawatt solar system can generate enough electricity to power about 200 homes annually, according to data collected by the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Katie Bartolotta, a vice president at the Philadelphia Energy Authority, an independent city agency, said the project has been years in the making.
She said a previous attempt to build a solar array at the airport was scuttled in 2022 because of issues connecting to the electrical grid through Peco. Those issues have since been resolved, she said.
Officials are pushing for the new array to be built soon in order to take advantage of expiring federal renewable energy credits under President Donald Trump.
The project would provide power for daily airport operations, not planes, which run on aviation-specific fuel. Officials anticipate the solar farm would begin producing energy by Dec. 31, 2027.
Philadelphia is already powering multiple buildings through agreements with solar farms outside the city.
The bill to authorize the agreement was sponsored by Councilmember Brian J. O’Neill and is slated to be introduced in Council on Thursday.
PNE is located on 1,150 acres off Roosevelt Boulevard and Grant Avenue. It is used mostly by pilots flying single- and twin-engine plans, turboprops, helicopters, and jets.
A medical transport jet crashed into Northeast Philadelphia shortly after taking off from the airport in February 2025, killing all six aboard, including a child. The jet slammed into a residential neighborhood, creating a blocks-long disaster, also killing two people on the ground.
