Company officials say they’re adding solar arrays because they want to be a good environmental partner, but building them now, by most accounts, just makes financial sense.
Several factors play into the trend that has rooftops and parking lots glistening with mirrored panels at Tampa International Airport, Great Bay Distributors in St. Petersburg, Lockheed Martin in Oldsmar and other local sites.
The growing trend reflects a dramatic drop in price for an alternative energy source long thought too expensive to be cost efficient. The reduced costs have been attributed to the mass production of solar panels, with some being manufactured in China.
The median upfront project costs for solar arrays have dropped from about $6.3 per watt in 2009 to $3.1 per watt for projects completed in 2014, according to a report released by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) earlier this year.
The other significant factor: a 30 percent federal tax credit on a solar project’s costs — a tax break that expires in 2016.
Tampa Electric Co. is currently installing 7,000 solar panels atop a parking garage at Tampa International Airport, which will create enough energy to power 250 homes on an average day, or operate the 1.4-mile automated “people mover” train coming with the airport’s $1 billion master plan expansion.
Shortly after that project began, TECO announced plans for a much larger solar array on land near its Big Bend Power Station in Apollo Beach. That project will produce 25 megawatts of electricity, compared to the 2 megawatts the airport project will produce, making it the largest solar array in Hillsborough County. That is enough to electricity to power 3,500 homes.
TECO expects to take advantage of the federal tax credit for both projects.
When both are up and running, customers will see a slight decrease in the fuel portion of their electric bill, TECO spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs said. No exact amount has been determined.
For the utility, she said, the timing is right because the cost is now right. The Florida Public Service Commission rejected a TECO-planned solar array in 2009 saying it was not cost efficient. Today, that has changed, Jacobs said.
“The price of solar technology has declined significantly in recent years and we hope that decline continues because it makes it more affordable for everyone, including utilities. The other part is that larger scale solar arrays are the logical next step for our renewable portfolio.
“On a very basic level, we’re looking at a new world,” Jacobs said. “This will help us learn about that. Also, we’ve long supported renewable energy, including solar power. This is a way we can do that on a broader scale. Renewable energy plays a role in our energy future, but we want it to be fair and equitable for all of our customers.” Large-scale projects are more equitable than rooftop projects, she said.
Duke Energy is also gearing up to add solar in Florida. The utility plans to build a 5 megawatt array in Perry in north Florida and is building a 3.8 megawatt project in Osceola County and a 5 megawatt grid to serve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which provides electricity to Walt Disney World.
Duke already has a rooftop array on the St. Petersburg campus for the University of South Florida. Company officials say Duke plans to install up to 500 megawatts of solar by 2024.
Utilites are not alone in the rush to install massive solar arrays.
Great Bay Distributors in St. Petersburg expects to save 70-80 percent of its energy costs with the new 1.5 megawatt array it installed on its new warehouse off Interstate 275 near Gandy Boulevard.
“While we were in the design stages, we were looking at what makes sense financially and being a good environmental partner,” said Matt Sokolowski, a Great Bay representative. “Our ownership decided we have a huge warehouse with a ton of rooftop, why not add solar. The family was all about what is right and what makes sense,” he said referring to the Focardi family, which owns Great Bay.
“Let’s face it, the cost of power is never going to go down,” Sokolowski said. The company invested $2.5 million in its solar array and expects to recoup that in six to seven years.
Lockheed Martin recently announced the state’s largest privately owned solar array, which produces 2.25 megawatts of power, enough to run 372 typical homes. The array is installed in the Oldsmar complex’s parking lot where it shades employees’ cars and decreases the company’s energy costs by 40-60 percent.
Like many others, Lockheed Martin plans to take advantage of the federal solar investment tax credit. “That was definitely one of the factors when considering our options,” said Jonathan Poggi, facilities operations manager for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training.
He said the $5 million project should be paid off within 10 years.
“Lockheed Martin has a Go Green initiative to identify different ways we can save money and reduce our carbon footprint,” Poggi said. “We look at water, power and ways to be a good corporate citizen.” The company considered several options before deciding on the parking lot array.
Several other Lockheed Martin operations in Florida are considering adding similar solar arrays. “Also, we’ve had quite a few local businesses contact us because they want to pursue similar projects in scope and size,” Poggi said.
Getting more residential rooftop solar in Florida continues to be a struggle, with no state tax breaks and a lot of push back from utilities, said Mike Antheil, founding director of the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy (FARE), based in St. Petersburg.
Florida is in the top five states in terms of potential, but much lower in developed capacity, Antheil said.
Utilities lobby hard against anything that will keep money out of their bank accounts, he said, and that includes residential rooftop solar power. He said utilities send 50 to 60 lobbyists to Tallahassee each legislative session “to do everything in their power to confuse, befuddle and frustrate consumers so they won’t adapt solar.”
FARE is working on a ballot initiative — Floridians for Solar Choice — that would “remove barriers that currently exist for putting solar on residential rooftops” by allowing people to finance the systems on a sort of rent-to-own basis, he said. So far, the initiative has about half the signatures needed to get it on the ballot, he said.
Meanwhile, utility lobbyists launched a competing ballot initiative — Consumers for Smart Solar — that would allow only Florida-regulated utilities to provide solar power. The initiative would add language in the state constitution that residents have the right to put solar panels on their own property.
“That’s already legal,” Antheil said. Individuals just can’t sell the power they produce. He accused the lobby of once again trying to confuse the issue for voters.
Antheil says there are three good reasons to put solar on Florida rooftops: with rooftop solar, customers get to use every bit of energy their system creates; only the customer installing it pays for it; and if enough people install solar it eventually means less need to construct new utility plants powered by coal, nuclear or natural gas.
It isn’t that FARE doesn’t support utility scale solar projects, he said. The group just wants residents to have better options for installing solar systems directly on their property.
©2015 the Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Fla.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
