Florida Electricity & Light-weight blows up its very last coal plant, will substitute with photo voltaic

Florida Electrical power & Light (FPL) yesterday demolished its past coal-fired plant, the Indiantown Cogeneration Plant in Martin County, east of the Everglades. And suitable in advance of the plant imploded, FPL CEO Eric Silagy declared that the utility will establish a photo voltaic heart in close proximity to the site.

FPL coal plant demolition

Florida Energy & Light’s Indiantown coal plant formally closed on January 1, 2021, and it was demolished yesterday, which resulted in the 495-foot chimney toppling and an 800-foot coal chute collapsing.

Just prior to the coal plant exploded, Silagy declared to a small collecting of attendees that FPL will construct a 75-megawatt photo voltaic farm with 300,000 panels on 500 acres nearby.

Silagy claimed:

We have built more than 40 solar energy facilities all through the  condition and we are properly on our way to installing extra than 30 million photo voltaic panels by 2030.  And we are not halting there. With the construction of the world’s largest solar-driven battery facility and an progressive inexperienced hydrogen pilot project, we are major the state and nation in making strength that is reliable, economical, and superior for our setting.

There are people… in our marketplace, who say, ‘You can not be clean up and cost-effective. You can not be clean and reliable’… We have established that is not the situation.

Here’s FPL’s video of the stay demolition of the coal plant under. Silagy, who talks the converse of a clean up electrical power advocate, speaks at 23 minutes in the online video, announces the new photo voltaic farm at 37 minutes, and the demolition follows at 40 minutes.

FPL’s foreseeable future photo voltaic ideas

Later in 2021, FPL intends to start the “world’s biggest photo voltaic-powered battery storage facility,” which is at the moment under development in Manatee County, on the west coastline in the vicinity of Sarasota. By 2030, FPL says it will include an extra 700 MW of battery storage.

FPL, the premier strength corporation in the US as measured by retail electric power created and offered, now has  41 solar electricity centers all over the condition, with nearly 3,000 megawatts of solar capability.  All of its solar electrical power facilities that have occur on the internet in 2021 will also guidance FPL SolarTogether, which is the most significant community photo voltaic method in the US .

FPL forecasts that almost 40% of the company’s power will be web zero by 2030. (Editor’s note: Which is not an ambitious more than enough focus on. It is even now far too reliant on natural fuel, a polluting fossil gasoline, which FPL falsely categorizes as a “clean” gasoline source on its web page.)

The organization has a  “30-by-30” plan – put in 30 million photo voltaic panels by 2030 –and it’s much more than 40% entire. It will end result in 11,700  MW of solar capacity if the target is met, which is sufficient electrical power to electrical power more than 2 million households.

But FPL is not gung-ho about all solar. In September 2020, Electrek documented that Florida utilities, which includes FPL, tried using (and failed) to roll back web metering for rooftop solar by way of a entrance referred to as “Energy Fairness.”

That’s why FPL and other Florida utilities are so eager to produce their own photo voltaic ability – so they can make funds off generation, distribution, and transmission.

Go through additional: How US utilities are striving to block rooftop solar adoption

Picture: Still shot of FPL video clip

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