Babcock Ranch to be first "solar city"

Some of Florida’s most pristine acreage will soon become home to one Florida developer’s dream of a green city: nearly 20,000 homes, powered entirely by the world’s largest solar photovoltaic array.

The solar-powered city, announced Thursday morning, will be built on Babcock Ranch, a 91,000-acre property that is home to panthers, black bears and wood storks. The state and Lee County paid $350 million for 74,000 acres of cypress domes and pine forests in 2005. Five times the size of Manhattan, it remains the single largest conservation purchase in Florida history.

In exchange for selling the land to the state, developer Sydney Kitson got a green light to use the remaining 18,000 acres for an eco-friendly town that includes six million square feet of retail and non-residential space — equal to six malls — miles from the nearest city.

Kitson said Thursday that the development would also include small solar installations at homes and businesses, designed with the latest energy efficiency measures. He expects to start selling the homes some time in 2010, and begin construction in 2011.

Eric Silagy, who heads development for FPL, said construction on the 75-megawatt solar photovoltaic array will begin late this year or in the first quarter of 2010. Construction will take about a year, employ about 400 workers, and cost $350 million to $400 million. The cost will be borne by FPL’s 4.5 million customers, at a cost of about 20 cents a month, Silagy said.

Florida Power & Light is the state’s largest utility, and is a subsidiary of FPL Group, a world leaders in solar and wind energy. FPL Group subsidiary NextEra Energy Resources owns the world’s largest solar power plant in California, a 310 megawatt solar thermal plant, which produces electricity by using the sun’s heat to create steam that turns a turbine. The Babcock Ranch project, by contrast, will use photovoltaic panels with cells that convert sunlight into electricity.

Despite the hype, the city will rely on FPL’s fossil fuel and nuclear power plants at night and when the sun isn’t shining. The solar array and the city will be connected to FPL’s power grid, and it’s impossible to track a single kilowatt hour from its power source to the home that uses it.

More accurately, the development will use less power than the nearby solar array produces, making it a net exporter of solar electricity, Silagy said. So solar electricity will power the city when the sun shines, and send unneeded solar energy to other FPL customers. At night, the city will draw power from the utility’s other power plants.

State and local officials tried for years to buy Babcock Ranch as the final link in a 65-mile-long corridor of preserved land from Lake Okeechobee to Charlotte Harbor that includes Fisheating Creek and the Babcock/Webb Wildlife Management Area. The ranch, particularly the part known as Telegraph Swamp, is the largest parcel considered necessary to guarantee the $10-billion Everglades restoration project works.

The purchase, straddling the border between Charlotte and Lee counties, was subsequently criticized by the state auditor general, who cited a document in state files that said Kitson’s asking price for Babock Ranch was $117.2-million more than the initial appraised value in 2004.

Babcock Ranch, known among cattlemen as the Crescent B Ranch, was operated by the same family since 1918. Patriarch Fred Babcock was so proud of his stewardship of the land that he ran a side business called Babcock Wilderness Adventures so tourists could ride around the ranch and see what Florida used to look like. When he died in 1997, control of the ranch passed to more than 40 heirs, and they made it clear they were interested in selling to the right buyer.

-Asjylyn Loder and Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writers

Comments

[CP]

Every new development should be accompanied by new solar installations to offset their carbon footprint. Also, new houses should come with solar panels on the roof. As a country we need more investment in renewable energy.

[Frankie]

Sounds like green-washing to me.

[Alan]

As part of the Governor's effort to appear to be pro-environment, perhaps every new home in Florida should be required to install solar panels. We may be the "Sunshine State" but we aren't taking advantage of all the sunny days we get!

[Tino]

Thanks a lot, Alan.

Are you going to give me the $50k needed for my next house, or do I have to pay the 30 cents per solar kWh to save power that my utility will sell to me for 11 cents?

[JaySantos]

So I buy a house in 2010, and I get to move in sometime during 2011. That sounds pretty mixed up. Good luck lining up buyers. I wonder how many limo liberals will move out to the middle of nowhere to support this.

[Qotfw]

Dear JaySantos,

Limo conservatives is redundant.

[justin]

Global warming, the second biggest lie of the decade.

This project is in Charlotte, headline mistakenly says Collier.

[mad moderate]

I have hunted that area and its beautiful.
I am glad to see that some thought was given to "green construction",that area deserves it. This also gives FPL a chance to put together a small grid and work out some bugs.
Do ya love the Republicans just jump blindly on this not even knowing how good solar power is for our country.
Isn't oil consumption of national interest? Or is that a big lie to drill baby drill?
BTW justin,have you looked at the politi-fact.com to see how they refute the ultra conservative cato institutes contention the GLOBE is not warming.
I love when people talk about the temp in the US being cooler these past few seasons,as much as many republicans believe it to be true,there is an entire world out there,and the "world/globe has warmed.Hey do you believe Obama is a muslim? Do you think Obama took his oath on a koran?

[jc]

"The cost will be borne by FPL’s 4.5 million customers, at a cost of about 20 cents a month, Silagy said"
Yeah, 50% rate increase in one year just isn't enough!

[Indyfan22k]

Wow, the State and and county got ripped off !!

this ex NFL lineman is ripping off Florida , Collier and Lee Counties, and killing plants and animals in the process by more unneeded devolpment.

Once again the state of Florida and the plants animals lose due to greedy realators!

[paminator]

Ah yes, another brilliant solar PV project. Nameplate generation of 75 MW for $400M, or $5300/kW(peak). Sounds about right for a solar farm, although this cost does not include the federal tax credits, which are not discussed.

BUT, with about 5 hours/day average sunshine, the actual cost is at least $25,400/kW(avg).

Compare that with the proposed nuclear plants, at $7000/kW(avg).

Payback time is about 37 years(!) for the utility ratepayer. All of the solar PV panels will need to be completely replaced after 25 years. Hmmm...

Oh well.

[John]

More on the politics of this deal here:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090410/ARTICLE/904101043/2055/NEWS?Title=FPL-to-build-major-solar-plant-at-Babcock-Ranch

[Tom]

Wrong as usual, Paminator. I have solar panels that are more than 25 years old and they're still working just fine, thank you. See, unlike a nuclear plant, there are no moving parts to wear out. And speaking of payback, nuclear power just keeps on costing for thousands of years after the plant has had to be decommissioned and totally replaced. See, somebody has to pay to store, guard, monitor, and stop the leaks of all that radioactive waste. Of course you won't care. You'll have been dead for most of those millenia.

[paminator]

Tom-

Solar panels that are 25 years old? That cost someone a fortune!

Modern solar panels degrade at about 0.8% - 1% per year of service, even with no moving parts. They do not really degrade if they are stored indoors. Degradation is due to thermal cycling causing water penetration, contacts failing, and UV damage to coatings. Modern panels will produce only 80% of the new output after 25 years.

I seriously doubt panels made in the 1980's perform this well, but maybe you have an unusually good batch, or you have an interesting definition of 'working just fine.' They can last well past the 20-25 year warranty period if you are willing to live with lower output power. A commercial entity will have a different take on this in 25 years, because solar farm real estate costs money, and replacement panels will be much cheaper and more efficient. They'll replace them and sell the used ones at ebay.

Whining about nuclear safety is sooo '70s. Spent nuclear fuel can be re-processed many times. The nuclear industry has a fine spent fuel storage solution in place right now, without Yucca mountain. They are easily paying for it out of the 1.7 cents/kWhr they are paid for nuclear-generated electricity (the cheapest source of electricity in the US in 2007).

[lonewolf]

Nuclear is a joke. Too expensive and they carry a lifetime of hazards. No more nukes. No more nukes. Send Progress Energy packing,,,,, go solar...

[skeptic]

here they go again with their solar prooganda oh its only 20 cents per customer, 20 cents for power that is vailable lets sat 10 percent of the time.

[Bill]

USF's solar power is available 24/7/365 thanks to vanadium redox batteries. You can check them out in Albert Whitted Park.

[Tyler]

It’s great to finally see solar power being used in such a large way, but I have a problem with this. Where are all the natural trees and landscapes that are in this are now? I don’t see them in that picture. It looks more like a bunch of concrete and plants to me. They say they are helping the environment by building a solar city, but in reality they are destroying 18,000 acres of wildlife area. That land is no “home to panthers, black bears and wood storks.” If they didn’t touch this land to start building in the first place, they would be using much less energy than building retail space “equal to six malls.” Does anyone really need that many retail shops? Instead of investing in a huge project like this, they should really be focusing on the millions of homes already in use that don’t use the “green” lifestyle. This seems to be more for publicity than anything else. So by making a bunch of new houses that no one can really afford right now anyway, they will also be destroying 18,000 acres for humans to use and screw up just like the “eco-friendly” people say has already happened in the world. Here goes more of Florida’s natural beauty, with stores and tourist space, and lots of concrete buildings.

[Tino]

"USF's solar power is available 24/7/365 thanks to vanadium redox batteries."

Since Bill has yet to back up his claims with numbers, I had to do it. Looking at some sites on the topic to find pricing info, I see that a common number is $350/kWh of capacity.

So a 10 MW solar system that needs to store its power for 15 hours until the next day at $350/kWh will cost:

10 MW * 1000 kw/MW * 15 hr * $350/kWh = $52,500,000 extra above the cost of the panels, which would run about $5,300/kW, or $53,000,000 (I'll use paminator's numbers since they are pretty good).

This number may have to be even higher to account for cloudy days, but at some point you will choose lower availability over higher costs. Costs go vertical as you try to approach 100.0000000% availability.

So now we are talking a doubling of the system costs to $105 million for a measly 10 MW of round-the-clock power.

It's getting cheaper, but nowhere near a nuke, which is actually closer to $4,000/kW, not $7,000. The numbers being thrown around are including switchyard and transmission costs (which will be required for solar as well) and financing costs (which will be even higher for solar, since the initial cost is more).

Oh, and I haven't included the land/ecological costs. How many acres of Florida bunny habitat do you have to pave for 2,000 MW? I will challenge CP, Bill, Alan, mad moderate, Tom and lonewolf to come up to the board and calculate that for the class.

Contrast that to nuclear plants, which actually enhance surrounding areas: http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/12/14/nuclear-plant-credited-for-saving-endangered-crocodiles/

[paminator]

Tino- You are being generous to Bill. This site-

http://www.vrbeasteurope.hu/?level=faq&lang=en

gives an installed cost of $450/kWh for a 100 MWh capacity system. They claim service life of 15 years before replacement of membranes and recycling the electrolyte.

Surprisingly (for me at least), the cost is comparable to lead acid batteries if you take life into consideration. A high quality lead acid battery will last 5 years and cost about $100/kWh in large quantities.

[Tino]

from that very informative site:

"How many Hours are required to Charge for each hour of Discharge?
You can charge the system virtually as quickly as you discharge it but you require 25% more power due to the losses. So for each hour of charge you can get 1 hour of discharge (we add the extra electrolyte to take care of losses). A practical charge discharge ratio for optimal performance is about 1.7 to 1."

But I though Bill said that these batteries will keep the party going all night long! It looks like they will just stretch out the output long enough to get you through the early evening peak, which is a good thing in itself, but no 24/7/365 like Bill so breathlessly claims...

[Tino]

Tom: "somebody has to pay to store, guard, monitor, and stop the leaks of all that radioactive waste."

So, Tom, what do you say to Grandma when the doctors are prescribing a dose of radioisotopes to fight her cancer?

Do you tell her that the waste risk is too high and offer to take her coffin shopping?

It must be nice to live in your fantasy world...

[TK]

People are real hypocritical beings. In the Babcock Ranch, a 91,000-acre property, a new solar panel city is supposed to be build. This seems like a good idea at first. What better way to go green, than introduce solar power or wind power in a gas gosling city. However, Babcock Ranch is not a city right now, it is a ranch where panthers, black bears and wood storks live in. These animals will be taken out of their natural habitat to build an environmentally friendly city. Since when is it environmentally friendly to destroy thousands of acres of land, and remove the animals from their natural environment? I believe they had good intensions when they thought about the project at first. Nevertheless, their new idea just does not seem right. They don’t say what will be done about the animals. And, if they have the material ready why don’t they just place it in already existing cities? Who knows how much money would be saved, and how much green house gasses would be reduced, if this was introduced in a big city like New York. That area is already inhabited by people, sticking some solar panels here and there and converting the taxis to hydrogen driven taxis would help a lot more than this project. However, in the end this idea of destroying 18,000 acres of wild life does not seem logical.

[cheap computers]

This number may have to be even higher to account for cloudy days, but at some point you will choose lower availability over higher costs.