INDIANTOWN — Beyond the taqueria and past the cattle ranches here, more than 700 workers are busy building the largest solar-power plant in Florida.

They’re assembling giant aluminum frames that stretch 40 feet long and weigh 2,800 pounds apiece.

When the frames are finished, they will fit them with 192,000 mirrors.

And, eventually, they will attach steel pipes to hold liquid that the sun will heat to 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

To see the scene at Florida Power & Light Co.’s solar-thermal plant in western Martin County is to think that a new era of clean energy has finally dawned in the Sunshine State.

But not so fast.

Despite lots of talk about the need to be green, state lawmakers dragged their feet on proposed legislation this year. They never managed to pass a renewable-energy bill.

FPL says it has more solar projects ready to go — but it can’t build them until the state approves a law allowing it to recover the costs of construction.

One example is the Babcock Ranch project north of Fort Myers, where FPL and Palm Beach Gardens businessman Syd Kitson want to build the world’s first solar-powered city.

Another example: a new solar plant in Manatee County.

And there are solar manufacturing companies ready to set up shop in Florida, FPL spokesman Jose Suarez said.

“But that legislation is going to be key as to whether that happens or not,” he said during a tour of the Martin plant on Wednesday.

The Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center, as the local plant is called, is a prime example of why solar is good for Florida — especially now, as the state tries to recover from a crippling recession.

By the time the 75 megawatt plant is complete late next year, it will have put about 1,000 people to work during construction (about 60 percent of them Florida residents).

About 200 of the new hires are people who applied at a job fair in April — when a staggering 8,000 people descended on an Indiantown park with hopes of finding work at the plant.

Okeechobee resident Mike Green is among those who got hired. A trained pipe-fitter, he had been traveling a lot for work. Now, the 33-year-old doesn’t have to.

“I come home every night,” he said.

The Martin plant is one of three solar plants FPL is building around the state. The other two are in DeSoto and Brevard counties, and both involve photovoltaic panels, a different technology that converts the sun’s rays directly to electricity. At the Martin plant, the sun will heat liquid that will create steam to help power an existing natural gas plant.

But the state’s first three solar plants will remain the only three — until something changes in Tallahassee. That’s because the three plants maxed out the 110 megawatts of solar power that a 2008 state law allowed utilities to recover costs for.

When complete, the Martin plant is expected to be the second-largest solar-thermal plant in the country — behind a 310 megawatt plant that FPL’s parent company operates in the Mojave Desert.

It won’t employ many people once construction wraps up — only about a dozen — but it will provide enough power to serve about 11,000 homes.

By using energy from the sun, it will prevent the emissions of at least 2.75 million tons of greenhouse gases over 30 years.

It’s not the cheapest form of energy, but it won’t be a heavy burden on customers either. To pay for FPL’s three solar plants, the utility’s customers will shell out about 31 cents more a month on their bills.

It’s a small price for cleaner energy.

If the Legislature gets its act together and passes renewable energy legislation next year, we could have more.

Eve Samples, TCPalm.com

Tags: Economy, eve samples, FPL, green energy, jobs, solor power, Tallahassee, workers

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