With 16,500 photovoltaic panels covering 27 acres, Princeton‘s new solar collector field is among the largest single installations at a U.S. college or university.

About 80 percent of the system is composed of SunPower T0 Trackers, which use a global positioning system to track the sun each day to maximize energy capture.

The project site is located on land adjacent to Princeton‘s main campus between the New Jersey Transit "Dinky" spur line, the Delaware & Raritan Canal, Washington Road (Mercer County Road 572) and Route 1.

The project was built on land that holds the “spoils” from dredging Lake Carnegie back in the 1970s, so it would have been quite challenging to farm or locate a building there.

At night, the solar array reports negative power, as it draws energy from the grid to maintain its systems. On a night with a full moon, the solar array draws noticeably less power.