The creation of a new hybrid solar plant will help create more Florida construction jobs.
Florida Power & Light recently announced their plan to open the first of three new solar power projects, which create new construction jobs, as well as other positions, and eventually make Florida the second-best state in the nation for using energy from the sun. The facility, which will be located in southeast Florida, will be the world’s first hybrid solar plant to connect to an existing fossil fuel plant. According to an article by The Associated Press, the facility will use the sun’s power to generate steam and offset the use of natural gas, making it more energy efficient.
“When heat from the sun is available to produce electricity, we’re going to use less natural gas,” Lewis Hay III, chairman and CEO of FPL Group, Inc., Florida Power & Light’s parent company, said in the article.
The plant, which will cost about $476 million and is slated to be completed in 2010, will produce 75 megawatts of solar capacity, or enough to create electricity to power up to 11,000 homes. The facility will use more than 180,000 mirrors located on 500 acres of land to captue the suns power.
The new facility will be the country’s largest solar thermal plant outside of California, where FPL Group operates a 310-megawatt site in the Mojave Desert.
“Solar thermal technology uses sunlight to produce steam, which is used to generate electricity,” the article adds. “The public is more familiar with photovoltaic solar technology, smaller systems typically found on homes and office buildings that produce less power and use special panels to collect sunlight and convert it directly into electricity.”
In 2009, FPL plans to begin construction on two other solar plants. Once completed, the three facilities should produce about 110 megawatts of power, making Florida the country’s second leading producer of electricity from the sun, falling only behind California.
FPL Group provides electricity in 27 states and is the nation’s top producer of wind and solar power.