A bright idea
Solar ‘trees’ to harness the sun are popping up in public spaces.
Get ready for some unusual plants to start popping up outside public sites all over South Florida.
Zoos, museums, airports and parks will be home to 24-foot-high “trees,” or curvy green tubes with solar panels on top. Other sites will get solar canopies, designed to resemble a contemporary aluminum roof.
Florida Power & Light is putting up the creatively designed solar panels to increase its harnessing of energy from the sun.
And homeowners who are solar enthusiasts are helping foot the bill. There are about 8,000 families in Miami-Dade, 7,000 in Broward and 5,000 in Palm Beach County who are voluntarily paying an extra $9 a month to support the effort. For the record, they don’t get a discount on their electric bills to do it, FPL said.
Palm Beach International Airport is among the sites that will get solar panels this summer. Three trees will greet drivers as they enter the airport, and the cellphone parking lot soon will be covered by a solar canopy.
The airport panels are expected to generate 65 kilowatts of energy when the sun is shining. The typical Florida house uses 1,092 kilowatt hours a month, according to the nonprofit Inside Energy.
The airport project, including the canopy with 200 solar panels, is among many projects FPL is installing around the
state. One of the largest is in Naples, where the utility has built a 600-panel canopy in the Naples Zoo parking lot.
The Young at Art Museum in Davie got one of the first solar canopies in 2015. Curator Zach Spechler said the canopy covers 28 cars and has two charging stations for electric vehicles.
He said the museum sees the canopy as part of its work to teach visitors about the intersection of art and environmental issues. In one exhibit, a cloud sculpture in the museum is powered by a solar panel.
“We think the canopy is a great way to educate the public about solar,” he said.
FPL spokeswoman Alys Daly said about 1 percent of FPL’s electricity generation comes from the sun, similar to the national average. The utility expects solar to generate more than 5 percent of its power by 2023, she said.
Still, many Floridians perceive FPL as anti-solar after its campaign in favor of a proposed Florida constitutional amendment that failed in 2016. Opponents said the amendment would have opened the door to new fees and costs to rooftop solar users.
Daly said solar energy has been a focus of FPL’s sustainability efforts for many years, even before the amendment became a topic of debate. Florida Power and Light Co. has installed solar panels at several sites, including this solar tree in Boynton Beach. FPL is putting up the creatively designed panels to increase its harnessing of energy from the sun.