How Tampa Electric's Solar Power Footprint

Tampa Electric is significantly expanding the use of solar power. By 2023, TECO plans to add another 600 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic solar projects, which is enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes. In total, Tampa Electric will have 1,250 MW of solar power.

When the projects are complete, 14 percent of Tampa Electric's energy generation will come from the sun – a higher percentage of solar than any other Florida utility. A significant portion of Tampa Electric’s goal is accompanying decarbonization of emissions. It's a large focus for many companies and TECO is no different. TECO continues to install gas powered turbine systems, which is a big plus for the environment compared to other power generating solutions. TECO also owns a gas company throughout the state of Florida “People's Gas” - solar has been a big growth business, the clean energy megawatt initiative at TECO is growing and is viewed as a significant opportunity in the future.

Currently TECO has several sites that are in production that are producing power throughout the service area, plus several that are being built this year and more next year. As land is purchased and permits are approved, which is just a small part of the lifecycle process, then construction begins, and eventually SCADA control gets implemented and commissioned.

Getting the required permissions can take a significant amount of time. There are several factors that must be taken into consideration, depending on where the property is located and how close it is to the residents, for example. Although there isn’t a negative environmental impact, installations can be visually challenging. Large solar farms may not necessarily be the most attractive view to citizens. Typically, installations are on TECO owned property. Current projects include:

The construction of a TECO solar site includes multiple panels, all wired into one device called a combiner box. From the combiner box, there’s a single power conducting cable to the inverter. The panels create DC voltage, that feeds to an inverter, which then converts it to AC. That AC power is sent to the substation, then on to the larger grid and is ready for consumers to use. Given this complexity, there's several data objects that TECO monitors, like ground fault conditions, for example. These GFI faults can occur if there's a heavy rainstorm.

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