By Alan Byrd, Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy
Shortly after Category 4 Hurricane Helene passed over Florida’s Panhandle, I took a trip to Panama City from my home near Orlando. Much of the drive was along Interstate 10, directly in the storm’s path.
For those unfamiliar, this section of Florida is one of the state’s most rural stretches of interstate. For over 100 miles, the landscape is mostly agricultural or protected lands dotted with small roadside towns.
This stretch of highway has seen a metamorphosis of late. Large farms are transitioning to harvesting energy as Florida utilities rapidly expand their use of utility-scale solar power. According to a recent report by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, utility-scale solar production in Florida will double over the next three years.
Consider Florida Power and Light’s recent activity. The utility “added 1,192 MW of solar in 2023 and another 1,639 MW has already reached commercial operation in early 2024,” according to the report.
This trip intrigued me because I have lived in Florida nearly all my life. While my landlocked home in Orlando has largely escaped the winds of hurricanes, I have seen the damage caused by storms like Andrew, Ian, Michael and many others.
In most cases, hurricanes leave behind widespread destruction. Imagine my surprise when I passed a Florida Power and Light solar farm, directly hit by Helene’s Category 4 eye, and saw almost no damage. Trees along the interstate were tossed like matchsticks, yet aside from a couple of downed panels, the solar farm remained intact and operational.
A week later, Hurricane Milton swept through Florida, and a video of damage to a Duke Energy solar farm went viral. Many friends sent me the clip, knowing my interest in the intersection of clean energy and hurricanes. It made me wonder: just how resilient is utility-scale solar?
On Oct. 23, Florida Power & Light shared details about the hurricanes’ impacts during its earnings call. According to T and D World, the storms caused more than $1 billion in damage to the grid, yet FPL’s solar farms were virtually unscathed, helping nearly a million customers avoid power outages. Remarkably, less than 0.05% of the nearly 16 million solar panels across 66 sites affected by the storms were damaged — none significantly.
That certainly backed up my observation along Interstate 10. But what about the Duke Energy solar farm damage that went viral?
Amazingly, the solar farm resumed power generation just four days after Milton. Located in Lake Placid, this site was not hit by the hurricane’s core winds but rather a rare EF2 tornado in the storm’s outer bands. Elsewhere, none of Duke Energy’s solar farms were impacted, according to Tamara Waldmann, the company’s Director of Florida Distributed Generation, Strategy, and Policy.
“It really shows how resilient these sites are and how the local building codes ensure robust structures and safety,” Waldmann said.
She also highlighted solar’s broader benefits: “Fossil fuel avoidance, carbon emission reduction, local landowner support and solutions to family farms and ranches, local community construction jobs and tax benefits, how solar plants enable a non-permanent land use and land preservation, and how the federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act Production Tax Credits flow directly back to our customers on their bills.”
Waldmann noted that the storms provided valuable insights for improving solar farm design to better withstand future challenges, including high winds and flooding.
While Florida residents continue recovering from Helene and Milton — some, like me, facing roof repairs, and others rebuilding homes entirely — one thing is clear: Utility-scale solar has proven itself a resilient and essential part of Florida’s energy infrastructure.
Alan Byrd is Florida outreach director for Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE). He is a 40-year resident of Florida. This opinion piece was originally published by the Orlando Sentinel, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. Banner photo: Florida Power & Light Company’s DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center. (ASCOM Prefeitura de Votuporanga, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
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