Florida

Florida’s Rice Creek Solar Energy Center is now online, delivering nearly 75 megawatts (MW) of clean electricity to 12 cities across the state. The solar farm is part of the Florida Municipal Solar Project, one of the largest municipal solar initiatives in the US.

Advanced air mobility (AAM) operator UrbanLink has just signed a new purchase agreement to bring even more electric aircraft to the Southeastern United States. Its latest purchase includes 27 all-electric Seagliders from REGENT Craft – a sustainable air mobility developer.

Florida will get $198 million of federal EV charger funding over five years, but Wawa, Buc-ee’s, Busy Bee, and others can’t access it because the state is slacking.

Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer Lilium has announced a new partnership with advanced air mobility (AAM) operator UrbanLink that includes the purchase of at least 20 all-electric eVTOL jets. The aircraft will be operated around Florida as UrbanLink looks to become the first US airline fully committed to the nascent technology.

The city of Hallandale Beach, Florida is in the news this week after becoming the only municipality in the state with a fully electric transit bus fleet.

Florida legislature is about to ban offshore wind turbines in state waters, which wouldn’t be put there to begin with, to protect the beaches.

Duke Energy is piloting a floating solar farm in Florida – its first – on an existing cooling pond in Polk County.

The city of Lakeland, Florida, has approved 77 homes featuring solar and storage that will be linked together to form a community microgrid.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) just turned down $377 million in free federal energy-efficiency money despite Florida suffering ever-hotter temperatures.

Hertz announced today that it plans to add up to 6,000 rental EVs to its existing fleet in Orlando for leisure and business customers, as well as rideshare drivers.

A Florida state senator told the state’s Department of Transportation that he thinks EVs could run out of charge and block traffic during hurricane evacuations.

Solar contractor SALT Energy has installed a rooftop solar system in Florida that’s now the state’s largest rooftop solar system, as well as its largest privately owned solar project.

Auckland, New Zealand-based Invisible Urban Charging (IUC), which offers “end-to-end charging as a service,” is going to roll out more than 6,000 EV chargers in Florida, mostly at commercial sites and parking lots.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) vetoed a bill, which the state’s Republican-majority House and Senate passed, that would have slashed rooftop solar credits in the state. It would have denied many homeowners net metering in the Sunshine State, and harmed its solar industry.

State legislators in Florida have approved Florida SB 1024 and HB 741, which would require future rooftop solar panel owners to pay higher rates and curb net metering. Yesterday, solar workers traveled to Tallahassee and let legislators know what a terrible idea they think these bills are.

Today Ultra-Yacht announced its first-ever All-Electric Duffy Boat featuring a solar charging option at the St. Petersburg Power and Sailboat Show in Florida. The Duffy Bayshore 18 is a zero-emission, low-maintenance boat that offers up to 12 hours of fun on the water.

Between 2022 and 2025, 27.3 gigawatts (GW) of new natural gas-fired capacity is scheduled to come online in the US, boosting its existing capacity of 489.1 GW as of August 2021, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Here’s where it’s headed.

The Florida Power and Light (FPL) Company’s Manatee Energy Storage Center, the world’s largest solar-powered battery system capable of powering Walt Disney World for around seven hours, is now 75% complete.

Florida utility Tampa Electric Co. has announced it will retire three coal units and double its solar output within two years. That’s good news, but in an interview published last week, its CEO doesn’t mention the fact that the vast majority of its power comes from natural gas or whether it plans to transition away from the methane-producing fossil fuel.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) just signed into law SB 1128/HB 919, “Preemption Over Restriction of Utility Services,” which was pushed through the legislature. It prevents local governments from deciding which energy path they want to take. In other words, Florida towns and cities are now unable to switch to 100% clean energy because they can’t ban fossil fuels.

Duke Energy Florida has announced that it will build two more new solar farms in the Sunshine State. This time, they’ll be in Citrus and Hardee counties.

The utility reported in February that it is investing an estimated $1 billion to construct or acquire a total of 700 MW of solar farms from 2018 through 2022 in Florida and will more than quadruple the amount of in-service solar on the system over the next four years.