Earth Equity News

Largest U.S. Gas Power Plant to be Coupled with 2nd Largest Solar Thermal System. By Jad Mouawad, NYTimes, March 5, 2010. "Across 500 acres [in Florida] north of West Palm Beach, the FPL Group utility is assembling a life-size Erector Set of 190,000 shimmering mirrors and thousands of steel pylons that stretch as far as the eye can see. When it is completed by the end of the year, this vast project will be the world's second-largest solar plant. But that is not its real novelty. The solar array is being grafted onto the back of the nation's largest fossil-fuel power plant, fired by natural gas. It is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a way that lowers costs and spares the environment. This project is among a handful of innovative hybrid designs meant to use the sun's power as an adjunct to coal or gas in producing electricity. While other solar projects already use small gas-fired turbines to provide backup power for cloudy days or at night, this is the first time that a conventional plant is being retrofitted with the latest solar technology on such an industrial scale."