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."

Comments

+1

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to live in what seems to be an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.

A new city?

[Kokuyo]

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.

Re:A new city?

[dotancohen]

It would have the added advantage that one 'incident' at the generator site would nut shut down the whole city.

That's disgusting. I hope that the power generator employees won't be doing that on company time.

Air Conditioning?

[Muad'Dave]

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.

Re:Air Conditioning?

[DerekLyons]

Unfortunately the sunniest places are also some of the hottest, requiring quite a lot of power-hungry air conditioning.

Modern folks think they are required to have air conditioning, sure. But I grew up in Jacksonville (Florida) in the 60's and 70's - and houses with air conditioning were the exception, not the norm. People got along just fine without it. We didn't have older folk or kids keeling over from the heat. Nobody panicked when it got over 75 F.
 
What changed in Florida was four things: 1) Cutting down all the shade trees when building new developments. 2) Building standard ranch tract houses rather than houses suited to the climate. 3) Massive waves of 'immigrants' and retirees from colder areas of the country who were unused to the heat. 4) Ongoing marketing by AC companies that AC was 'required' to be modern and up-to-date.

Re:Air Conditioning?

[wrook]

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I'm living in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan and it gets "Florida hot" and then some (I lived in Tallahassee for a year when I was a kid). In the school where I work we *do* have air conditioning. It's set at 28 degrees C. I don't have air conditioning in my house. I use a hand fan during the day and an electric fan at night. If it's really hot I wear a wet bandana on my head. You get used to the heat. Hell, it's barely even warm here compared to places like India.

Why ground installation?

[DanielRavenNest]

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.

Re:Why ground installation?

[Spazztastic]

Photovoltaic systems are generally expensive overall. Usually when they choose where it goes it's been because they did extensive research and simulations to decide on which location to build it, which direction the panels will face, whether the climate conditions will cause problems, etc. If they chose to put it in one centralized location, it's because they did the fucking math and it will pay off.

Disclaimer: My cousin sells photovoltaic systems for a living, I've learned a lot from him while assisting.

Re:Why ground installation?

[JWSmythe]

    Actually, wrong.

    I used to live near the Inglis Hydroelectric plant. The dam was built in 1909, but stopped generating power in 1965. I know there was talk through the 80's and maybe early 90's about restarting it, but it's output was insignificant compared to the nuclear and 4 coal plants of the Florida Power (Now Progress Energy) Crystal River site, just a few miles away. Bah, who needs clean renewable, when we have 4 coal burning plants and a nuclear reactor that's offline most of the time. :)

    The link above indicates that they're trying to bring it back online as a 2 megawatt facility. In comparison, the nuclear plant a few miles away is a 914 megawatt facility. The 4 coal plants there generate 2313 megawatts. Then again, the Crystal River site is the 12th worst polluter in the US. Ahhh, gotta love clean burning coal. {cough}{cough}

    People get bent out of shape about new power plants going in. But, they get even more bent out of shape if you try to put a hydroelectric plant in. Not only does it use the land the plant is on, but it also uses miles upstream that it has to back up for water pressure. There's no "natural" way to do it, you need the differential in water level to make it work. How do you say "We're going to flood this million acres, all of you need to move now. You'll be paid for your property. Have a nice day."

   

I tried that

[SmallFurryCreature]

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!

Why?

[spike2131]

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.