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.
In other words it costs about $50,000 per household.
I would venture to say based on experience and study, that given 50,000 bucks per household, one could have one heck of a solar system for each household with a big pot of money left over, not to mention the possibility of selling back some of the power produced each year the system is operable.
Then one should also factor in what a “NORMAL” power plant would have cost, and run the numbers on how much more, solar is going to cost, over the inexpensive, available, and affordable fuels that are at present in plentiful supply, like coal and gas.
Except that it is not driven by normal decision making processes. It is driven by politicians..
Just one week a year and it's spent right on the coast.
So what would you estimate average home electric bills run?
Who owns this boondoggle? The government (taxpayers)? The local Power Utility (either private (shareholders) or publicly (taxpayers again) owned)?
Who AUTHORISED this expenditure of money and who are they answerable to?
The FPL page also says 42000mwh is enough to power 3000 homes for a year. IOW, the average house uses 14mwh / year, or about 38kwh / day.
If a panel operates usefully four hours a day on average, an average house would need about 35 panels plus a hefty battery bank, an inverter, and control electronics.
There's a guy who posted an article on how to make a 60-watt panel for about $100, not including batteries and inverter and labor. It was to power his remote campsite in Arizona. He wrote another article on how he made a windmill using sliced PVC tubing for the turbine blades. Oh, well. A start.
Such a deal! But in Florida it gets dark at night..
I don't know but in CA there are regulations for utilities to meet goals for renewable energy sources and cater to local green politicians. SCE was planning to build a large solar plant out in the middle of nowhere and all the politicians were bragging. Then some enviornmental group sued to stop construction because of some lizard or something.
yahoo weather shows 85 degress with isolated thunderstorms for this area. lets hope.
my yard needs the rain anyway
The cost will be phenomenal and electricity bills will more than triple to make up the gross inefficiency of these systems.
The writer again mixes up watts and watt hours.
What do they do when it rains?
They borrowed a large portion of it from the taxpayers.
We’re building one of these solar cell farms in north Florida too...
Would you mind telling me where? I have searched and not found any info on this.
It’s near Baldwin. A private company is building it and will operate it. JEA (Jacksonville) is planning to buy its power output. They say that it’s 150 MW.
If I went to the bank and tried to borrow $50,000 to put solar onto my home, they would laugh me into the next state.
Only the government can find ways to squander money on the grand scale that they do so.
What makes it even more putrid is that they make bid celebrations about the event, and the highest of the high show up- on the taxpayer nickel to tell us how wonderful it all is.
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES !!!!!!!!
But the haloed one won’t go to Berlin to celebrate the 20th anniv of the Wall’s coming down. Yeah he gets it. (sarc)’
The One also didn’t have Queen Elizabeth at the D-Day celebrations in France this spring.
Despicable. She is the ONLY world leader who was a legitimate veteran of WW II.
. And when we have another hurricane in that area the solar panels will also be gone. “”
Will the solar panels turn into objects which can decapitate a person in a hurricane?
Who will be responsible for that?
Can you turn that windsheild into a solar panel?
Just asking.
No. But cars make great solar collectors. Especially if the windows are closed.
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