Tampa Electric to build 25MW solar project

OREANDA-NEWS. August 07, 2015. Tampa Electric plans to build a 25MW solar project at its Big Bend coal-fired power plant.

The project would be located on 125 acres of company land at the 1,700MW Big Bend station and would be the largest solar facility in the Tampa Bay, Florida, area, the company said on 4 August. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2016 and will have the capacity to serve more than 3,500 homes, Tampa Electric said.

We are pleased to be able to demonstrate our commitment to providing our customers with more renewable energy by taking advantage of declining solar system prices and the land we own at Big Bend," Tampa Electric president Gordon Gillette said.

This is Tampa Electric's second large-scale project in the area. The first, a 2MW facility at Tampa International Airport, is under construction and is set to be finished by the end of the year. The company has built a number of smaller systems around the area totaling about 135kW.

Tampa Electric is a subsidiary of TECO Energy and serves more than 700,000 customers in west central Florida.