By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post
05/18/08

FORT MYERS — South Florida's sunshine will soon power this corner of the state's only public university with a solar farm expected to dwarf similar facilities at colleges worldwide.

Florida Gulf Coast University, which opened in 1997 with a focus on environmentalism, was given $8.5 million by lawmakers this year to plant rows of solar panels on 16 acres of its campus.

The earmark was a surprise to Florida's solar energy community, showing up in a Senate bill sponsored by Naples Republican Burt Saunders that also pays for alternative energy projects at several other schools including Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

And while some experts say solar technology is still a few years away from being truly cost efficient, no one argues that FGCU's solar field is a bad project.

"If I had a choice, I might spend the money first lowering the school's electric bills, but this is a great thing to do and it's the wave of the future," said James Fenton, director of the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida. "The reality is, the world is running out of oil."

If successful, FGCU's solar field will supply all of the 9,500-student university's energy needs, and save $22 million over 30 years.

The $8.5 million from the state still faces approval from Gov. Charlie Crist, who is likely to pass the plan, being a fan himself of solar energy which he uses to heat the pool at the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. FGCU is also hoping to get a private donation to match the state money and pay for the construction of an additional 1 megawatt solar farm. School officials plan to begin bid requests in July, break ground in October, and have the project finished by summer 2009.

"We want to demonstrate how we can co-exist with this environment," said Joe Shepard, FGCU's vice president for finance. "This will be the largest solar field for a university in the world."

The largest overall solar field in the world is believed to be in Portugal, where 2,500 solar panels are being assembled on 618 acres. The project cost $400 million and each panel weighs more than 2.2 tons.

Florida Power & Light recently unveiled a solar field in Sarasota County that has 1,200 solar panels.

Shepard said FGCU doesn't know how many or how big its solar panels will be, or whether they'll be stationary or rotate with the sun. Some panels may actually be assembled on the top of buildings to save land.

FGCU officials began thinking about building a solar field a year ago.

The school's focus is environmental sustainability and it has a special center dedicated to that purpose, but Shepard said using renewable energy on campus had been largely ignored.

"We were just focused on different things," he said. "We need to practice what we preach and think about reducing our dependency on fossil fuels."

During the 2008-2009 academic year, FGCU expects to spend more than $3.5 million on energy and uses an average of 1.4 megawatts per day.

The new solar farm, including the panels purchased with private donations, would generate 2 megawatts per day.

"The sun is free so there's no risk the price will go up," Fenton said. "The more solar we can do, the better."
 

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