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No Word On North Escambia Power Plant; Panhandle Solar Plant Announced
July 5, 2010
Months after Gulf Power Company began to purchase large amounts of land in North Escambia for a possible power generation plant, a new company has announced a solar power plant is feasible for Northwest Florida.
A start-up company called Energy Farm, Inc. plans to build a solar power plant in the Florida Panhandle.
The solar photovoltaic power plant will be located on 550 acres near Freeport in Walton County and will be capable of producing 74-megawatts of electricity — enough power for about 12,000 homes. The company will sell its generated electricity to a utility company that is has declined to name.
The official announcement came during a Clean Energy Congress in Tallahassee. Construction will begin later this year and the plant will be producing power by 2011, according to Energy Farm President Shelton Stone.
Stone said the company is working with “German partners” to develop technology to store extra energy created by the plant during the day so that it can be used after dark.
Meanwhile, there is still no word on the possibility of a new power plant in North Escambia. As previously reported by NorthEscambia.com, Gulf Power Company has paid millions of dollars for hundreds of acres near Bluff Springs as they attempt to amass about 3,000 acres.
“Nuclear, natural gas, solar or biomass.” That was as specific as Gulf Power’s Manager of Public Affairs Sandy Sims has been about the power company’s plans for North Escambia. As for wind generation, current technology would eliminate that possibility for now, she said.
On the acreage currently owned by Gulf Power, soil analysis is underway to determine if the land can support “any type of generation facility”. Permits are being acquired for a meteorological weather station including 300-foot high tower to measure temperatures, wind speeds and rainfall. All of that data will be crunched as Gulf Power moves forward in a decision on building a new generation facility. The projected need for the plant has been pushed to 2018 or 2019.
To read a previous NorthEscambia.com story about Gulf Power’s plans, click here.
Comments
12 Responses to “No Word On North Escambia Power Plant; Panhandle Solar Plant Announced”
you could copy the good and not the bad
Yeah, Terri, that’s all we need,copy Spain.The last report I’ve read is that they have a 19% unemployment rate!
yep, some like the idea of change without considering what the change might be. It’s the same folks who say, “Vote out all incumbents, anybody’d have to be better.”
Not that he isn’t a wonderful man and a fine President, just that we may not always be so lucky.
Now if he or anyone else can solve our energy problems . . .
David for change
and cash
Limitless free pollution-free energy? I fear not in our lifetime, DHG.
But one can hope for change. But wait, didn’t Obama promise that?
REGARDING:
“My fear is that this recession gets worse.”
Fear not. I have met folks who assure me the recession would have been a horrible depression but President Obama saved us from that and the recession will soon be a dim memory.
When I ask them how they know what would have happened, they assure me there are EXPERTS who KNOW these things.
Did they know beforehand?
No.
Were they experts then too?
Well, what’s different now?
Now they KNOW.
Its good to know people who know people who KNOW.
The rest of us try to plan ahead and allow for contingencies.
David for limitless free pollution-free energy
and whoever develops it
Aren’t they putting in gas collection system and gas power generator at the Beulah dump?
I wish the United States could follow Spain’s example with natural energy resources. I cannot tell you how many wind generators I saw in Spain,well over several hundred. We also saw fields with nothing but solar panels numbering in the hundreds. Yes it was inconveint to have the public lights inthe toilets go off after 2 minutes and yes it was aggravating to have the shower turn off after one minute and the temperature was preset,but it is about conservation.Something we in america need to get familiar with. Still hoping Gulf Power will buy my propery. It might be that Gulf Power will now gobble up water front property cheap and maybe out wind generators on the beach.
REGARDING:
“Nuclear power is best used as for base power generation but requires large amounts of cooling water.”
A one gigawatt (thousand megawatt) electric generating plant operating at capacity would need to get rid of enough waste thermal energy to boil about 24 million gallons of water per day. That’s about an eighth of the lowest flow rate of the Escambia River. I can see why Gulf Power wants to use ECUA waste water for cooling. You could just save all rain water and meet a year’s demand with 8.2 sections of land based on average rainfall if you didn’t have any evaporation.
Dry air could be used for cooling but I don’t think it often is.
Every one and every company I know is hunkered down. Pay off debt. Too much uncertainty with the economy and now with changes in healthcare and taxes coming, businesses are afraid to hire or stick their necks out, My fear is that this recession gets worse.
I have a feeling that any company ,including Gulf Power, is going to take a wait and see attitude towards any large capitol investment in NW Florida until the outcome of the oil disaster is better known. Between the tax increases which are coming into play soon to support the recent medical welfare bill and the disaster in the gulf, this area may well experience a worsening economy for many years to come. Many small businesses are suffering and the large players are sitting on what ever capitol they have until all the ramifications are better understood. I pray that I am wrong, but I’m afraid this area is in for some real hard times.
T; that would be a good thing, but better yet, measures and programs to stop putting so much in the garbage to begin with would help too.
I would like to see them build a power plant near the Beulah dump to convert trash to electrical power. A process using a plasma arc will reduce waste and generate net electricity and the technology already already exists.
The new plant in North Escambia is interesting to speculate on: Nuclear power is best used as for base power generation but requires large amounts of cooling water. You do not want to start and stop the plant all the time. It is brought on line and handles all power demands below peak levels. Other types of generation are brought on line to meet peak demand during the day. They could use gas turbine generators using Natural gas to handle peak demand and then use a Nuclear Plant to handle the lower baseline demand. In other words i expect a Hybrid system to be built. Coal is considered non-green and dirtier. If they can solve the water problem then a smaller Nuclear plant could be built.