Florida Power & Light announces “world’s first hybrid solar centre”

• 13 years ago (2011-03-06)
• Junior Isles

North America 998 Renewables 751

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Florida Power & Light (FPL) Company has announced that it has created what it claims to be the “world’s first hybrid solar energy centre”. The plant, the FPL Martin Next Generation Solar Facility, sits on 500 acres of Western Martin County in Florida and has a field of over 190 000 solar thermal mirrors.

All of these mirrors are combined with an existing combined-cycle natural gas power plant. The solar panels use technology that allows them to track the sun during the day to harness solar energy and reduce the need for the power plant to burn fossil fuels.

The plant generates 75 MW of power from the sun, enough power to run 11 000 homes annually. FPL expects the solar energy to reduce the fossil fuel consumption by about 41 billion cubic feet of natural gas and to save more than 600 000 barrels of oil.

The reduction in burned fossil fuels will avoid the release of about 2.75 million tons of greenhouse gases and save power customers $178 million in fuel costs over the 30- year life of the new plant.