FPL Seeks OK for Solar Project Near Indiantown
By The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
Dec. 13–Florida Power & Light Co. is getting ready to follow the sun — in Martin County.
The state’s largest electric company will ask county officials today for land-use changes that will let it build a small solar-power project at the Martin Power Plant near Indiantown.
The demonstration project would produce only 10 megawatts of electricity, but it’s one of several renewable-energy ideas FPL is considering for about 750 acres it owns around the power plant.
One thing that won’t happen there: a coal plant.
“We’re no longer pursuing coal,” FPL spokeswoman Pat Davis said Wednesday.
The land originally was planned for a new-generation plant that would convert coal to gas to produce electricity. FPL tried twice to build a 1,900-megawatt coal-fired plant in Florida, first in southwestern St. Lucie County and then in Glades County.
The projects either were killed by regulators, or the utilities pulled back, mostly because of increased scrutiny from environmental advocates and state officials, who now are pushing for more renewables and cleaner-burning power plants.
The initial project the company is exploring at the plant between State Road 710 and Lake Okeechobee would feature solar panels on about 60 acres. Ultimately, FPL wants to build about 300 megawatts’ worth of solar-generation panels around the state, Davis said.
The Indiantown site made sense because the company owns about 11,000 acres there, some of which is now being used for a natural gas-powered steam plant that generates about 3,700 megawatts of power annually.
“Solar power takes a lot of land,” Davis said. “And we have transmission lines at the site already.” FPL and Martin County officials will meet this morning to begin the approval process for changing the 1989 master site plan for the Indiantown land to allow for the solar and other renewable-energy projects.
The changes would require Martin County Commission approval. Commissioner Sarah Heard said she likes the idea.
“It sounds like the perfect place to do it,” Heard said. “I welcome that kind of innovation in Martin County.” Commissioner Michael DiTerlizzi, who represents the Indiantown area, also applauded the proposal.
“We need to look at alternative sources of energy. The roof of every building the county owns could be available for solar panels,” DiTerlizzi said. “We all like to turn our lights on and our stove on, and we need power for that.” FPL, a division of Juno Beach-based FPL Group Inc., said in September it wanted to build a 10-megawatt project somewhere in Florida as a prelude to the 300 megawatts of solar power, which would provide electricity to about 45,000 homes. At the time, FPL said it would use solar-thermal technology made by Ausra Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up backed partly by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, one of the main speakers at a July conference on climate change that Gov. Charlie Crist hosted.
Davis said FPL is committed to building both projects in Florida, but the company has been backing away from its ties with Ausra, saying it is reviewing its technology as well as technology from other companies.
“Our technical teams are talking to their technical teams, but we’re also talking to other vendors,” Davis said.
John O’Donnell, executive vice president of Ausra, said his company has researched FPL’s Martin County plant and wasn’t surprised that the utility is considering it for the 10-megawatt project.
“It’s a perfectly reasonable site,” he said.
What was news to him were comments from FPL that the company is looking at other providers besides Ausra.
“We were … surprised by some of the comments,” O’Donnell said. “We’re diligently working away.” Meanwhile, an activist group known as the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition has been protesting FPL’s plans to build a large natural gas power plant called the West County Energy Center near 20-Mile Bend in western Palm Beach County.
Hobe Sound resident Peter Shultz, a member of the coalition, called FPL’s plans for solar panels in Martin “greenwashing” to deflect criticism from the Palm Beach County natural gas plant.
“I think it is great that they are doing renewable energy,” Shultz said. “But these are all just drops in the bucket compared to impacts of the West County Energy Center. Don’t just put out a solar plant here and there to buy off environmentalists.” FPL’s Davis said solar won’t be the answer to taking care of what’s known as baseload power, a stable fuel source that can run consistently all the time.
“But it’s certainly a worthy environmental pursuit and one we are committed to,” she said.
By Jason Schultz and Kristi E. Swartz
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