"I applaud TECO and Energy 5.0 on this exciting partnership that moves Florida closer to our goal of increasing energy diversity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, March 2009, on a joint deal to produce electricity from a proposed solar panel facility in Polk County.
It seemed a marriage made in renewable heaven.
In an energy deal cut last year that promised to inject larger-scale solar power into the Tampa Bay area for the first time, TECO Energy agreed to buy electricity from a proposed Polk County plant for the next 25 years. TECO's partner, Energy 5.0 of West Palm Beach, would build and run the plant, a 25-megawatt solar photovoltaic generating station.
Now the much-anticipated deal is dead, a significant blow to renewable energy in the, ahem, Sunshine State.
The solar deal fell victim to a void in state leadership. The Florida Legislature in 2009, and again in a 2010 session that at best can be called chaotic, failed to deliver on renewable energy legislation. The measure would have required (and, yes, subsidized) major electric utilities to diversify their sources of electricity by using such renewable energy sources as solar.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/lack-of-state-leadership-kills-tecos-big-solar-plant-project/1099525
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