About 18 months I wrote a short note - Florida Utility announces plans for 10+ GW of solar! In that note I said:
Great news coming out of Florida as FPL announces plans to install 10+ GW of solar by 2030 - or almost 1GW per year. As a reference point - the whole state of FL had 1.2GW of utility-scale solar as of Oct 2018.
A recent announcement from FPL shows how things have progressed over the last year and half and where things are headed.
FPL expands solar leadership as construction begins at six more solar energy centers
The six new solar energy centers, which are on track to go into operation by the end of this year, will support FPL SolarTogetherSM – the company’s highly popular community solar program and the largest of its kind in the U.S.
FPL has already brought 10 new solar energy centers online this year, and its sister company Gulf Power has commissioned one new solar plant. These solar projects combined with the six 74.5 MW-solar plants being constructed will result in more than 5.6 million panels or approximately 1,275 MW of new solar capacity added in 2020
Florida’s largest generator of solar power, FPL has approximately 1,975 megawatts of universal solar capacity.
FPL will have completed 17 - 75MW solar plants in 2020. It's basically assembly line construction. FPL will easily meet their goal of 10GW of solar capacity by 2030.
In my previous note(Jan 2019) I also showed how coal generation had continued to decline thru 2018 in FL. Here is an update to the chart using more recent data. Coal generation will essentially be gone in Florida within a few years. Note: I have estimated 2020 coal generation based on data thru May.
