America’s (newest) largest solar plant set to go live in Florida

Engadget is reporting that FPL is about to open a solar plant in North Florida soon.

That's pretty big.

If all goes well, this 25-megawatt solar plant in Florida won’t be America’s largest for long, but it’s not like we’d pass up the opportunity to let this $150 million facility bask in its own glory (and the sun, if we’re being thorough) while it can. The Desoto facility is just one of three solar projects that Florida Power & Light is spearheading, and judging by the proximity of this one (in Arcadia) to the 75-megawatt facility planned for nearby Charlotte County, we’d surmise that the two are linked in some form or fashion. President Obama is expected to show up rocking a set of Kanye glasses underneath a welder’s mask when the plant is fired up this Tuesday, and while it’ll only provide power to “a fraction” of FP&L’s customer base, it’ll still generate around twice as much energy as the second-largest photovoltaic facility in the US of A.

America’s (newest) largest solar plant set to go live in Florida.

That’s great news for a lot of different groups of people. This shows that FPL isn’t totally inept when it comes to spending the money when they fleece their customers. So I will count that as a plus for the critics and environmental peeps. This project also helped all the nomadic construction workers around the state.

But there are some economic benefits: It created 400 jobs for draftsmen, carpenters and others whose work dried up as the southwest Florida housing boom came to a closure and the recession set in. Once running, it will require few full-time employees.

Stock holders get a nice treat for more press coverage, though as of this moment, the stock is down. By closing of markets on Monday it should go back up because of this news, unless somehow they manage to bungle something else and cause more bad news. Here are two screen caps I took on 10/25/2009 at 2:30 PM.

Despite its nickname, the Sunshine State hasn’t been at the forefront of solar power. Less than 4 percent of Florida’s energy has come from renewable sources in recent years. And unlike California and many other states, Florida lawmakers haven’t agreed to setting clean energy quotas for electric companies to reach in the years ahead.

I wanted to highlight this very sad fact. Only 4%? That’s not just sad, but beyond sad. We live in an area of the country that is blessed with a decent amount of sunshine according to National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the US Department of Energy.

The Desoto facility and two other solar projects Florida Power & Light is spearheading will generate 110 megawatts of power, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3.5 million tons. Combined, that’s the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road each year, according to figures cited by the company.

The investment isn’t cheap: The Desoto project cost $150 million to build and the power it supplies to some 3,000 homes and businesses will represent just a sliver of the 4 million-plus accounts served by the state’s largest electric utility.

The reason why we have only 4% renewable energy sources here is due to the high cost of materials and lack of government subsidies that other power generation technologies enjoyed when they first started out. Until we have mass market PV (photovoltaic) panels at less than $1 per watt, I feel we are going to stagnate in the low percentage rate. Thankfully there really are a ton of different universities, companies and research teams all over the world working on different solutions to the problem. But that’s a post for another time.

Spain and Germany have made larger per capita commitments to solar power because of aggressive government policies, said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. And China has announced plans to pay up to 50 percent of the price of solar power systems of more than 500 megawatts.

“If we don’t get our market right and send the right market signals and really support growing this technology, we will be buying solar panels from other countries,” Smith said.

If you have some time, please download or read the transcript from a very good episode of Dan Rather’s Reports on HDNet for the politics behind solar. The episode in iTunes is called Power from the People.

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