The Sunshine State’s customer owned solar power is growing from a very low base, but it is growing. However, and for good reason, utility scale solar in the state gets the constant headlines here on pv magazine USA, with the state’s investor owned utilities driving a record first quarter in the USA. And it’s going to stay that way for a while.
The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) has reported that cumulative customer-owned renewable energy systems installed in the state increased by 57% over the prior year’s cumulative total. The total capacity of customer sited renewable energy reached 317 MWac.
In terms of solar power alone – which pv magazine USA broke out alone in this Google Sheet, the state deployed over 13,702 systems and 113 MWac. These numbers were increase of 68% and 76%, respectively, versus 2017 deployment volumes. In total, the state now has 310 MW of customer owned, net metered, solar power in the state.
This deployment volume includes residential and commercial installations.
The above chart is from the PSC articles highlighting total renewable additions. At the end of 2018, there were 31 non solar projects totaling 7,187 kW. This volume, which is cumulative, was actually greater at the end of 2017 – with 37 total projects connected, totaling 7,617 kW. The numbers for this article, used values excluding these installations – focusing only on the solar power volume deployed.
Reports breaking out solar alone, along with the wind and “other” customer owned renewables, can be found here.
For comparison’s sake, the State of California – with nearly double population of Florida – deployed more than 1.5 GWdc of customer owned solar power in 2018. This value is more than four times greater than Florida has deployed cumulatively.
While this data doesn’t break it out, and since it takes time for large commercial machines to expand, some of this volume increase might be for “customer owned” systems that are actually owned by the large residential lease companies. This might lead to further expansion in growth numbers as we saw Sunrun break the dam by getting approved for a fixed price solar lease – not a power purchase agreement that varies based on generation – in the state in 2018. Subsequently, all major third party solar companies got their respectively solar lease contracts approved by the PSC as well.
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How are hurricane force wind levels being addressed?
So glad to see the sun being tapped in the sunshine state!!
As a former residential solar contractor from Florida, the wind codes across much of the southeast along the coast have been upgraded toward the Miami-Dade building code requirements – which are quite aggressive.
Also, here’s an interesting wind code related article I wrote last year – https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/11/29/in-case-of-hurricane-apply-enphase-and-mind-your-wind-codes/
Wind force good question. The Rocky Mountain Inst report on Puerto Rico is a good read. The solar system on the roof of the Veterans Administration one good example. Many more less so. This report has changed how I will deploy solar racking, and I’ve already bought it. Wind codes are good, but actual field reports from disasters are better. Their was wind engineering done on many systems that failed, often the type of fasteners was quite important, torque wrench required.
Yes ! this is a win for The Sunshine State. Happy to see things moving in the right direction, especially for one of the states that get enough sunshine to make solar an even better investment than it already is. Hurricanes are something to think about but the increased strengths are at least in part due to climate change in the first place. This is a step in the right direction in a time where laws slowing down solar growth are still being made in some states. Thank-you for the post!