Parrish smokestacks will come down in 2022. World’s largest solar battery will replace them
For decades, FPL’s 15-story smokestacks in Parrish have been a landmark that could be seen for miles across the East Manatee landscape.
With advances in technology and much cleaner ways of generating power, the stacks, at 19052 State Road 62, have become obsolete and are scheduled to be taken down in two years.
In 2017, Florida Power and Light activated its new 74.5-megawatt solar power plant in Parrish, providing enough power to supply 15,000 homes.
Two years later, FPL announced plans to build the world’s largest solar-powered battery system at the Parrish plant with four times the capacity of any other battery system in operation. The battery system will help accelerate the retirement of two fossil fuel generation units.
The battery system, expected to cover a 40-acre tract, is still being designed, and should be in operation in 2021, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said Tuesday.
“Battery storage technology continues to get better everyday, We are still in the design phase and trying to stay ahead of the changes,” McGrath said.
Red-and-white smokestacks towering 500 feet have been a fixture at the plant since the early 1970s, said Alys Daly, a spokeswoman for FPL.
The stacks are expected to be taken down in 2022, she said.
Technology at the FPL plant has evolved since the plant opened as a oil-burning facility. In the 1990s, the plant became a controversy when FPL announced plans to burn Orimulsion there to generate power.
Orimulsion, a fuel from Venezuela, is a combination of bitumen and water and was opposed on the grounds that it represented a threat to health.
In 1998, Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Florida Cabinet voted 6-1 against FPL using the fuel in Manatee County, marking the end of a four-year fight against the fuel.
In 2005, FPL completed a two-year, $530 million project in Parrish to generate electricity with a natural gas-fired plant, a much more environmentally friendly operation than the old oil-fired plants.
At the same time that it activated the Parrish solar plant, FPL also activated solar power plants in Arcadia and Charlotte County.
FPL expects to open its second solar plant in Manatee County later this year, doubling its solar generating capacity in Manatee County.
The new plant, Southfork Solar Energy Center, is located in Duette at 34030 State Road 62 in a former citrus grove.
FPL has plans to build two more solar plants in Manatee County, but the construction timeline and locations have not been announced.
The future FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center will have 409 megawatts of capacity – the equivalent of approximately 100 million iPhone batteries – when it begins serving customers, FPL said in a 2019 press release.
“This is a monumental milestone in realizing the full benefits of solar power and yet another example of how FPL is working hard to position Florida as the global gold standard for clean energy,” said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL, in the press release.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
