SunPower lands mega solar deals in Florida

SunPower on Thursday announced two deals with Florida Power & Light to build 35 megawatts worth of electricity, including an installation at the Kennedy Space Station.

The deals are the largest to date for SunPower, which makes and installs solar photovoltaic panels.

The Florida power plants will use a sun-tracking system like this one used in the Serpa plant in Spain.

(Credit: SunPower)

A 25-megawatt plant will be installed by DeSoto County by 2009 and the Kennedy Space Center will have its 10 megawatt plant done by 2010. Florida Power &Light will own and operate the plants.

The largest solar photovoltaic plant in the U.S. is at the Nellis Air Force base in Nevada, which generates 14 megawatts.

Earlier this week, General Motors said that it intends to build a 10-megawatt installation at an assembly plant in Spain.

Large corporations build these huge installations to get a fixed electricity rate over several years, typically 20 or 25 years.

Utilities are purchasing wind and solar power because of high fossil fuel prices and state-level renewable energy mandates.

[CheckerII]

I've never heard of the "Kennedy Space Station". I know of the Kennedy Space Center and the International Space Station, but didn't realize that a new space station had been constructed. Come on, have someone proof read your stuff before publishing it. There are similar blunders in other articles that you've posted. Nothing personal, but things like this can be confusing for the uninformed.

[OldFartPeter]

At least the Kennedy Space Centre is doing something aligned with modern scientific thinking! When I visited the center a few years ago, the Hubble telescope, which had just produced wonderful pictures of the deep-field galaxies 10-14 Billion light-years away, was described as having explored objects thousands of light years away, i.e. off by a factor of 10^6 or so. Creation nonscience creeping in? Assisting in the reduction of global climate-change is a good thing.