U.S. based power utility company, Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) has recently announced joining hands with Miami-Dade County to install over 400 floating solar panels in a recreational lake situated behind Miami International Airport. Reportedly, this would be a first of its kind floating solar field in the state. Speaking on the development, Carlos Gimenez, Mayor, Miami-Dade County said that it would act as an essential demonstration project that answers the question of whether it works or not and can it be implemented on all the lakes present around Miami-Dade County to generate affordable cheap energy. Meanwhile, Eric Silagy, President, FPL, said that the floating field would act as a research vessel and there would be a lot of greater opportunities for the company to understand the costs, the benefits and the pros and cons with this project. This project is part power source, part promotional and part research, and marks as one of many solar fields which the company has in South Florida, including the latest installation in Bayfront Park. Silagy further added that FPLs intends to install 30 million solar panels by 2030. In other news, FPL claims that due to lower operating costs, the electric bill of a homeowner would drop to roughly $4, starting January. Reportedly, the power utility firm announced a massive solar expansion plan at the start of 2020. It claims that a typical homeowner consumes nearly 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every month. As per the current rate, an owner consuming such amount of energy usually pays $99.90. However, under the latest rate slab, this cost would go down to $96.04. Commenting on this, Silagy said that the company's long-term investments in zero-emissions solar energy and advanced & innovative clean energy centers are helping to minimize customer bills and fuel costs. Source Credit: https://www.wlrn.org/post/fpl-partners-miami-dade-county-new-floating-solar-panels#stream/0