At the Florida Power & Light Co., 190,000 mirrors are used to concentrate the suns energy to heat synthetic oil to ~750 degrees. The oil is then used to boil water, creating steam to turn turbines. The $400 million dollar plant can generate 75 megawatts on peak days. This powers 11,000 homes. The plant in Indiantown, Florida, is the world first to combine solar thermal energy harvesting to a combined-cycle natural gas power station. The construction came in $75 million dollars under budget. The plant is not as ideal as it may sound. The plant needs 500 acres of land. Solar based systems always take up more land that its competitors. Despite being in the hurricane ally of the Gulf of Mexico, FPL claims their plant was tested and can withstand up to 130mph winds.
The team at Florida Power & Light Co. wants to build an additional 300 - 500 megawatt solar installation. Vice president of FPL, Eric Silagy said, "We believe that solar is a great addition to the fleet at FPL. We are the Sunshine State. We have proven that it works very well." That is an additional 73,000 homes powered. Still far shy of the 4.5 million customers FPL had, but it is a major step in the right direction.
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