Bull! My cars are doing fine!
Posted on 10/24/2009 8:24:54 AM PDT by lowbridge
The Florida solar panel plant cost $150 million to build.
A field of orange trees makes more sense.
The state of Florida is completing the final touches on a solar panel plant that cost $150 million to build and will only power 3,000 homes.
Barack Obama will visit this solar-paneled cash dump next week.
The AP reported:
The Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center will power a small fraction of Florida Power & Light’s 4-million plus customer base; nevertheless, at 25 megawatts, it will generate nearly twice as much energy as the second-largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S.
The White House said President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the facility Tuesday, when it officially goes online and begins producing power for the electric grid…
…The Desoto facility and two other solar projects Florida Power & Light is spearheading will generate 110 megawatts of power, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3.5 million tons. Combined, that’s the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road each year, according to figures cited by the company.
The investment isn’t cheap: The Desoto project cost $150 million to build and the power it supplies to some 3,000 homes and businesses will represent just a sliver of the 4 million-plus accounts served by the state’s largest electric utility.
But there are some economic benefits: It created 400 jobs for draftsmen, carpenters and others whose work dried up as the southwest Florida housing boom came to a closure and the recession set in. Once running, it will require few full-time employees.
The plant cost $150 million to build and will power 3,000 homes or businesses.
In other words it costs about $50,000 per household.
The initial costs on a solar energy plant are just the beginning of a long line of maintenance expenses. Free solar energy isn’t cheap. Expect to have every panel there go bad sooner than it should, over and over again. At some point it will provide plenty of jobs, because it will be under constant construction. The $50,000 per home will turn into $100,000, $150,000 and on and on.
$50k per house. My bill is around $250/month averaged over the year.
Thats $3000 per year for electricity.
So it’ll take 16 2/3 years to reach break even without including maintenance costs. I bet the break even point is close to 30 years. What an investment.
What happens if a jet just happens to break the sound barrier over these panels? Just an evil thought.
Don't live in FL, do you?
Very little heating cost, but many run the AC all year long, especially in the South. Can get pretty expensive.
I doubt that the solar panels have a 40 year life span.
At least they put it well away from the coast, so salt air isn’t a problem and hurricanes are less of one.
“At least they put it well away from the coast, so salt air isn’t a problem and hurricanes are less of one”
The storm surge from a hurricane aren’t a concern but the winds will tear these things apart. If not the wind directly then the things it picks up.
Just like Crist and BO to celebrate throwing money in the trash.
Well when the space shuttle comes in there are two big booms. I guess we can hope.
Its not the heat, its the humidity. :)
Bull! My cars are doing fine!
Actually, that’s correct.
The humidity adds to the load on the AC. Cooling from 95 down to 78 is much more expensive in FL than AZ.
Lets not forget Florida has a lot of cloud cover much of the year. I give this white elephant only about 25% of the estimated output, 6 -8 hours each day, at most.
In all likelihood.
I would assume a “normal” power plant is a lot more resistant to winds, although obviously the transmission system is a lot more susceptible.
Isn’t the govt the only one with jets capable of that?
Isn’t the govt the only one with jets capable of that?
Just need 999 more of these plants to power the state.
In AZ, we never kicked the AC on unless it was above 110 with humidity. Humidity affects how a person rejects body heat and thus in humid conditions, you have to cool to a lower temperature to feel comfortable. If fact, I remember many a day in AZ with the outside temperature above 100 where we ran our swamp coolers and were relieved to have the additional humidity provided.
And as we all know, if they had constructed a coal-fired or natural gas plant, it would not have created any jobs.
Er, well, no, actually it would have created plenty of jobs, not only during construction, but also when the plant would have been running...
IMHO there's nothing wrong with creating a "proof of concept" solar plant of this size in order for a utility to gain experience in the construction process and hurdles as well as in both operating and maintenance, along with providing a benchmark for operational life calculations. It's also a useful test case for comparing construction and operating costs with fossil-fuel generating plants and nuclear plants.
Serious problems will arise, though, if this one is intended to be replicated with the goal of replacing or even just supplementing other types of generation, because the net result will probably be to decrease the flexibility and reliability of the system (for example, due to lack of excess generated energy storage and lack of evening/night generation capabilities).
Change "are" to "were" at the beginning of the sentence -- now they're unemployed again. Given that the housing crash and recession are still in full swing, the net economic effect was nil.
I hope it’s cloudy, with non-stop rain, for the prefident’s visit!
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