The $11 million project would populate a desolate portion of the Navy Yard with a gleaming army of photovoltaic cells collecting enough energy from the sun to power about 200 households for a year.

It is the second such project driven by a collaboration of Peco's parent, Exelon Corp., and Epuron L.L.C., a subsidiary of the German energy company Conergy AG. Ground was broken last month for their first project, a $20 million solar-power station in Bucks County.

At the announcement of the Philadelphia project yesterday, Kathleen A. McGinty, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said many more such efforts would be possible if Rendell's proposal to create an $850 million alternative-energy fund were passed by the state Senate.

The measure would have the state issue bonds to raise the $850 million to provide grants and loans to support commercial and residential alternative-energy projects, such as solar and wind power. The state would use a portion of a gross-receipts tax it collects from utility companies to pay off the bonds.

"I really don't know what or who the opposition is," McGinty said in an interview. "We feel like we're shadowboxing. . . . We'd love to make a deal."

Reached minutes later in their Harrisburg offices, opponents of the bill said yesterday that they were awaiting the governor's call.

"If Secretary McGinty wants to make a deal, she should be in Harrisburg, talking to us," said Patrick Henderson, a spokesman for State Sen. Mary Jo White (R., Venango), chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

White last year offered a competing bill, which called for a $650 million fund for which only $250 million would be borrowed. The rest would accumulate gradually from the gross-receipts tax.

That fund also would distribute alternative-energy loans and grants more gradually than Rendell's plan.

Rendell's bill, which passed the House, now awaits attention in the Senate, while White's bill, which was passed in the Senate, awaits attention in the House.

Meanwhile, energy companies are moving forward on a handful of alternative-power projects without significant state investment.

Epuron's regional director in Philadelphia, John Conley, said in an interview that the station would generate 1.0 to 1.4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 200 households for a year.

Because of solar power's reliance on sunlight, Conley said, the station's generating capacity is computed by a formula that takes into account typical weather patterns in the region.