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Florida To Build Solar-Powered City
Mike writes "The sunny state of Florida just announced that they will begin construction this year on the world's first solar-powered city. A collaboration between Florida Power & Light and development firm Kitson & Partners, the 17,000 acre city will generate all of its electrical needs via a 75 megawatt, $300 million solar-powered generator. The city will also use smart grid technology to manage its power and allow all inhabitants of the community to monitor their energy consumption."
I would like to live in what seems to be an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.
Do I understand correctly? They want to build a city from scratch?
In that case, why build a massive solar generator instead of fitting the rooftops with solar panels from the start? It would have the added advantage that one 'incident' at the generator site would nut shut down the whole city.
And it would probably save massive amounts of space.
...its dark at night.
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will it be like one of those crazy retirement communities in florida where everyone drives golf carts? what will happen at night when all of those old farts plug their golf carts in? 8)
stephen
Unfortunately the sunniest places are also some of the hottest, requiring quite a lot of power-hungry air conditioning.
Hopefully they'll take advantage of highly-efficient ground source heat pumps since the water table is probably very high in the Ft. Meyers area.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Okay, solar-powered city!
But let's see how much this is going to cost John Q. Resident.
$300 million divided by say 20,000 residents is $15K/resident. Add in the cost of money and amortization and you're talking at least $2,200 a year.
Plus they need to build a regular power station to handle 100% of the load for when it gets cloudy and rainy, which in Florida is a non-negligible part of the time. Plus the power lines to bring in all that power to the city. No, you can't assume the rest of their system has that much extra capacity in lines or generators.
It's not a terribly attractive deal for the actual ratepayers.
As a long time florida resident, wont it be alronic when a (ha ha ha) hurricane rolls through...
This is about 10-15 miles from my home in Arcadia, FL.
Most of the Babcock Ranch is swamp land, nature preserve (They do tours there, alligators, FL. panthers, etc..). I am guessing that is why the requirement for Solar power there, as there was a lot of stink locally when it was sold about what they would actually be allowed to do with the land. I look forward to moving there (if I can afford it!)
Several reasons:
(1) Installation on the ground is less expensive than on rooftops.
(2) If you put them on rooftops, all the houses would have to point in the same direction and have the same roof angles to get best efficiency
(3) In hurricane country, you might want to reset the panels horizontal in a storm to avoid damage
I assume they will be tied to the rest of the grid as backup, and to cover cloudy days, ie the city will generate its own power on average, but not necessarily at any given moment.
Will the city planners take into account the threat of Italian terrorists? I will not move my wife and daughters to a city that is foolishly left prone to nefarious Italian attacks, not in this day and age when eternal vigilance is necessary.
Isn't FP&L one of the companies that was just discovered to have been penetrated by the Chinese and Russians? I'm thinking it might be prudent to secure the system before adding things like smart grid, which essentially creates a point of entry to the system from every meter. But then I'm just a stupid security guy for a power company. What do I know?
Also blogged in the NY times greenblog
Start with wooden buildings and dirt roads. Add some cows, some pigs, chickens...
The almighty sun will make the plants grow and with those you can feed the animals and the people.
And you got a solar powered city.
You can have bees for the candles to read at night. The honey is a bonus.
I dont see any of the diesel big-rigs that are traitionally required to bring food and other resources into a city.
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FPL aims to raise electricity base rate by $1 billion "FPL spokesman Mayco Villafaña said the base rate is currently $39.31. If the request is granted, the base rate next year will be $51.71. That's a 31 percent increase." No wonder they have 100 lobbiests in Tallahassee
mastersro
1) Who thinks building *another* city, reclaiming natural resources, open space, building roads and infrastructure over them is a good idea? It is a great boon to various construction businesses though. And that crazy "green" stuff - well, it will get them some federal grants and easier approval. Then when all said and done, it will turn out that there is some technical issue with the solar generator and they'll just build the standard coal powered station or some such. Temporarily ;)
2) Personally, I would not want to live in a place where people are known as *inhabitants of the community*. But hey, I bet some enjoy being treated as lab rats.
Why not gas from all the decomposing old people?
Fascinating. I wonder if they need homesteaders. I've always thought about moving to Tampa/St. Petersburg area...
how are they going generate baseline power with solar energy only? get rain for a week and city will be sure to go black
I think, that I would never move to Florida even if you paid me to.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Maybe in the middle of the pan handle where I-10 cuts through to go from Tallahassee to Jacksonville? There seems to be a lot of open land there, but that's just what I've seen from the interstate.
Unless they use eminent domain or some other legal BS, the land itself will be a fortune. I see this "plan" dieing quietly.
It's about time, that a city comes into its own and has a power grid which is self sustaining, even though it is still plugged into the regular power grid we know and loathe.
If anything happens locally, the main power grid kicks in, if the main power grid has problems, it does not wipe out a whole city's power!
This is a win win situation for all parties involved and will also help create more jobs...
a local city power plant instead of the federal/privatized power plant.
I just hope that the city does not buckle under pressure from the power company to do their own thing
and follow standards that might jeopardize their independence from the main power source.
Hopefully all other major cities will follow if this is successful and long gone will be those problems of power grid blackouts!
is calling you. Don't worry about the underground base, and whatever yuo do...don't look behind you. They'll even provide you with an umbrella for a rainy day.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
is that it would be cheaper to that place to run a solar THERMAL generator. It would allow easy storage of heat (they use OIL for transfer medium; relatively trivial to store). But instead, they are taking the most expensive form of electricity there is; Solar PV.
I would love to know why dems are pushing wind and solar PV, when Solar PV is the most expensive option and wind can not be used as base power except with EXPENSIVE storage. Geo-thermal can serve as base power and solar thermal allows relatively cheap base power (solar thermal is cheaper than coal, but once you add storage, it is more expensive; but not by much).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out. While I hope it will be successful I suspect it will produce mixed results. The amount of power they are generating sounds fairly low for the size of the city (unless the population density is very low) and I'm guessing that the cars and most of the space heating won't be electric (but the cooling probably will be).
Solar power is great but it's probably not going to be how we generate most of our power in the next 100 years. We really need to start some serious investment into fission and fusion.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Someone needs to tell them, that just because they've made it in second life doesn't make it real.
But the beez fly around crazy when you light them and don't last very long at all. Perhaps it would be smarter to use the wax, that burns. If you put some kind of wick in it you could have a very controable burn. Might patent it!
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"The solar energy will be drawn from a fat, texas-tourist's sun-burned leathery ass. You know, like the ones you see on the cover of Orlando post cards."
I assume you can rig these things to be armored against flying debris and high wind for hurricane season...right? Or is it just accepted that every so often you're gonna need to replace one?
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They might as well buy out and raze some existing city and build it on the oceanfront--because if they charge property taxes that actually cover the construction costs, only multi-millionaires will be able to afford to live there anyway.
...
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Is it just me, or are we (Floridians) trying too hard to bring more visitors to the state? A large sum of Florida's economy runs on tourism, the entire state is a tourist trap! I know recently the numbers of tourists coming to the state has gone down, which seems to me as reason to justify the money being spent to build this city, but not a good one. This city just begs for tourism, a city running on sun in the sunshine state? Fits with the theme, no? Although we can only wait and see what happens with this city, if it was intended as a tourist trap, I see it ultimately failing in the long run.
They want to build 19,500 houses and create 20,000 jobs?
Playing with numbers for a second... assuming there are 2.5 people living in each home and the community is equally spread across all age groups with an average life expectancy of 75 years then the school systems will have 650 kids in every grade level and they'll need to have enough space for 8,500 k-12 students. At a seemingly reasonable ratio 12 students per teacher, this is ~700 teachers who (if paid $35k/yr) will draw $25M in salaries, which will cost each of the 19,500 homeowners a cost of $1300/yr.
I don't really know how this compares to other places... but this seems sort of reasonable. I just wonder if the kids growing up here will go off to college and get a shock from all the bricks and "20th Century" living.
Regardless, this is progress and that is a good thing! Hooray.
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I think this is an interesting concept except for the fact that hurricanes are a beast down here. Storms can get really bad too and I am curious as to how things will hold up during the storms.
I can't imagine Solar Power being a good idea when we have constant storms... and at unpredicitable times. One minute it will be raining, the other the sun is out shining bright. And this happens on and off all day. How do you cope with this? Solar Power does not work as well in cloudy weather and we get a lot of it regardless of our "Sunshine State" name.
I am worried and actually pretty interested all at the same time. I'm not sure who would want to live in a Solar Powered City as it is probably not as good as having good ol' fashion eletrcitiy... But FPL is a very good company and I respect them a lot. I'd say give them a shot.
While overall this being a good idea, with so many vacancies in FL now, do they really need more real estate?
They should try putting this in Sim City first and see how well it does vs Godzilla... If successfull, then I think Florida has a chance!
Why build a new city in Florida when all the ones they already have are chock full of empty, foreclosed houses? Its a lot more green to live in the places you've already built than it is to build new places. Putting solar panels on your new city doesn't change that equation.
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The better get some solar powered flash-lights for use at night.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Perhaps Florida should plan for hydro power instead, given the projected rise in sea level? http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/florida.shtml
I'd like to know just how much energy will be required to build an entire city? In addition to solar, they'd have to stick pipes up everyone's backside and collect methane to come near to the energy break-even point.
It's just that our solar power is stored in fossil fuels.
As someone who grew up in Florida, I wonder did these guys forget something? How do you hurricane proof solar panels??? You can't exactly put steel reinforced concrete in front of them to block incoming projectiles that fly around during a hurricane. Solar panels might make sense in the Mojave desert but not so sure about Florida where the entire state is at risk of being hit by a hurricane every year. I guess they can swap the panels out for wind generators during a hurricane. Maybe a tidal generator or wave generator would work better. Florida does have the longest coast line of any state.
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It's a resort.
There is nothing sustainable about building a city in the middle of a remote and fragile ecosystems when the market does not warrant it. There are plenty of vacant homes throughout SW Florida. The developer is trying to assuage concerns over the development by promising to make it green. And the Mike incorrectly posted that Florida is behind the plans for this city. It is a Developer named Kitson who wants to build this unjustified American Masdar.
Dubai was building something like this to show how futuristic they are. But I think its been slowed down due to the plunge in oil profits.
Hmmm that's a tough question. Will the electricity be free?
Alronic?
"As a long time florida resident, wont it be alronic when a (ha ha ha) hurricane rolls through..."
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2007/05/chinas-solar-powered-city-48605 China is already way ahead
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
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Indeed, everybody talks about the "magic" of solar cell electricity... but how costly is it for the planet to manufacture and recycle an efficient solar cell? I bet that's not cheap at all...
My mother originally worked AGAINST the ranch being 'bought out' by 'evil developers'. But after a year of working with unreasonable 'hippie' types (Babcock preservation partnership, I'm talking to you) ;-) she eventually sided with the developer (this is slashdot, the LAND developer) to build a 'green city' as their Environmental Affairs Director.
My background? 27 years old, 27 years in the solar energy field. Father has been in it for 30 years. I'm now the IT Manager for http://www.solarenergy.com/
/shameless plug
Congrats to all involved, solar is about to cross paths with Moore's law and with any luck my very abstract postulation that solar energy is infact the 'open source' of energy generation methods will be realized.
Bought the ticket, taking the ride.
Florida is a hurricane-prone area, and the houses aren't built to-code. Thus, every few years a hurricane comes along and blows roofs off, making more work (and more money) for the contractors. If the original builder's code violations aren't caught, it's a net-win for everyone except the homeowner and insurance company.
Florida offers a double-edged sword, as the code is poor to begin with, and is almost always not followed. Corrupt building inspectors allow this sort of crap to continue unabated. Just take a look at this damaging report from 1998.
A highlight:
So now, they want to put panels costing tens of thousands of dollars on said crappy roof? You'd have to be nuts to agree to such a stupid idea. But they're already crazy in Florida, as this whole code-violation situation is accepted as-normal, so I'm sure you'll find some takers.
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And occasionally whores for Karma.
So - if this city is under 20 feet of water in the next 20 years due to rising sea-levels induced by global warming, isn't this all basically a huge waste of time and wishful thinking? (not to mention the very common hurricanes damaging the panels every few years).
Seems like wind-power would be a better idea for Florida. If you build your towers tall enough, they'll still provide power long after your town has been submerged.
(this might have been a good idea 30 years ago - back when Jimmy Carter was president, and everyone was making fun of him for trying to get the nation to think about renewable energy. . . but now - it's just too little too late)
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75 MW is a large solar farm. The largest operating farm in the US is the 4.6 MW Springerville Generating Station near Tucson, Arizona. There are plans for an 80 MW San Joaquin Valley Solar Farm near Fresno that would be 260 hectares large (think a square 1.6 km on a side), so assume that is about as large as this Florida farm would need to be.
Air conditioning is considered a requirement for any type of operation in Florida for much of the year. Since "The community will ultimately contain 19,500 homes", that's ~4 kW sourced per house. Assume at least 3 kW per house in air conditioning (that's very efficient), so don't run your 1.2 kW hair drier!
Just put solar panels on every available surface, distribute some storage (batteries, whatever) around the place, connect it all to the existing grid and et voila... you have a solar powered city.