At their regularly scheduled August 4th meeting, the Kidder Planners approved plans for the townships first solar project. The project was proposed by John McElroy who owns Harmony Beverage off of Rt. 940.

The solar field will be located behind McElroys business. It will be comprised of 363 solar panels and will occupy less than one-half an acre of land.The project is expensive, costing around half a million dollars for installation. However, it will produce 100KW of energy, which is enough to cover all of McElroy's businesses energy needs."I'm doing this because I'm sick of high energy costs and dirty energy," he said. To underscore his point he held up a copy of the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, which featured a headline about new power lines."This is an easy project and its going to give me exactly what I need," he said. "It's expensive but when people ask me why I'm doing it I say its because it's the right thing to do.""Why aren't more people doing this?" he asked. The cost of outfitting a typical home is around one-tenth the cost of McElroys project, coming in at around $30,000 or $40,000. "It's expensive up front," he said, "but after that you have no energy costs."McElroy's project is being implemented by Pocono Solar, a local solar energy company.