Solar Farm Grows on Florida Campus

ABC News On Campus reporter Alex Pena blogs:

Construction has begun on Florida Gulf Coast University's solar farm. 

Solar panels are going up on the campus of Florida's Gulf Cost University. The solar panels that will line 16 acres of field will be a small reminder every morning as students drive into campus that their university is doing all they can to abide by an environmental mission statement, and save a lot money while they are at it.

"By installing solar I have reduced our bill by about $700,000  a year, forever!" says Joe Shepard, vice president for administrative services and finance at FGCU.

FGCU's solar project, once completed, is estimated to cost $14 million.  The university is paying $9 million and the rest is provided by the state.  The university is expected to get 18% of its power from the solar farm once the panels are up and working.

"While we have shifted our timeline, we hope to be operational by the end of November, sometime in December,"  Shepard said.

 But Shepard and Dell Jones, vice president  of Regenesis Power LLC, the private partner designing and managing the project, are facing criticism from environmental students on campus.

"Sixteen acres of forest were torn down and the landscape reshaped for the purpose of what?" says FGCU senior Angela Cisneros, member of the environmental association of the Fort Myers school.

"For installing 12 acres of solar panels when these instruments could be placed on the roofs and south sides of parking garages, dorms, and other buildings. I regret not causing enough noise to give more student attention to the apparent hypocrisy in the actions of our university decision makers."
 
According to Shepard, while rooftops and parking garages are an option and are in future plans, the 16-acre field was going to be cut down no matter what.

"Independent of whether we put the panels on the roof tops, those trees would have been removed," says Shepard. "On our 760 acres, about 340 of those were designed to be built on."

 The university's master plan originally proposed buildings and parking lots for that area.  "So solar was actually the more environmental option," says Shepard.

 Once trees were cut down, FGCU took it a step further.   "Trees were basically chipped up, put into a biomass plant and burned for power," Jones said.