Pioneering a 100% Solar City

Electricity utility Florida Power & Light (FPL) Group, Inc. (NYSE: FPL, FPL message board), last week said that it has agreed with the real estate investment company Kitson & Partners, to emulate the City of Masdar’s revolutionary concept of future urban development, by constructing America’s only carbon-neutral and zero-waste city in the “sunshine state” of Florida. FPL is expected to construct a 75 percent-megawatt photovoltaic solar power facility that will power the $2 billion-Babcock Ranch city to be laid on a 17,000 acre land which was purchased by Kitson & Partners as an environmentally sensitive domain for conservation three years ago.

Beginning of the year, Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company of the United Arab Emirates announced the construction of Masdar City which then was said to be the world’s only eco-city. First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) and Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP) won the tenders to supply 5 megawatts of thin film solar modules each for the power generation facility which will be utilised by an excess of 50,000 residents and 1,500 corporations when the city is completed.

FPL said their solar power plant will single-handedly be responsible for powering the futuristic Babcock Ranch city’s anticipated 19,500 residences, and various businesses and light industries that will be scattered within a space of 6 million square feet. 20,000 green jobs are also expected to be brought forth as from 2010, when the construction of the infrastructure is scheduled to take off, until when it becomes fully operational.

Labels: First Solar Inc, FPL, FPL Group, FSLR, News, solar, solarstocks, STP, Suntech Power

posted by Ertai at 1:26 PM