Florida Power & Light to build four new solar plants
Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) announced Tuesday the start construction on four new solar power plants.
The four plants are the FPL Interstate Solar Energy Center in St. Lucie County; the FPL Miami-Dade Solar Energy Center in Miami-Dade County; the FPL Pioneer Trail Solar Energy Center in Volusia County; and the FPL Sunshine Gateway Solar Energy Center in Columbia County. The new plants are expected to be operational by early 2019.
Each of solar plant will have a capacity of 74.5 megawatts, with a combined total of nearly 300 megawatts. The power plants are expected to produce savings of more than $40 million for FPL customers over time.
Currently, FPL operates 14 major solar power plants along with about 200 smaller solar installations. These facilities produce more than 935 megawatts of solar capacity.
“Florida is leading the nation in implementing solar energy affordably,” Eric Silagy, FPL’s president and CEO, said. “FPL is among the cleanest energy providers in the nation not because of governmental mandates or requirements, but because we’ve been committed to making smart investments in clean energy technologies for years. And we’ve proven that it’s possible to be both clean and reliable while keeping our customers’ electric bills among the lowest in the nation.”
In 2018 alone, Florida has installed more solar capacity than any other state except one, according to a recent report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. FPL expects solar will outpace coal and oil combined as a percentage of the company’s energy mix by 2020. By 2022, FPL is planning to have approximately 10 million solar panels in operation.
