In Southwest Florida, Taking a Shine to the Nation’s First Solar-Powered Town

We were thrilled to have Diane Daniel on-site last December to write a piece to be featured in the Washington Post.

“Along a dirt road leading into Florida’s past, I stopped to marvel at its future, or at least one vision of it. I was headed to Babcock Ranch Eco-Tours, where visitors pay to tour a working ranch and swampy backwoods on a state-owned preserve, when I pulled over to peer through a chain-link fence onto the edge of a spectacular sea of solar panels — 343,000 to be exact, stretching across some 440 acres.

While the 75-megawatt facility owned by Florida Power & Light attracts no fanfare here, a few miles down State Road 31 its primary customer, Babcock Ranch, has been making headlines for a while. The master-planned development in Southwest Florida, between Punta Gorda and Fort Myers, touts itself as the nation’s first solar-powered town. It welcomed its first residents in January and hopes to reach 500 by the end of the year. Eventually, some 50,000 people are expected to live in its neighborhoods, scattered around a Town Center and commercial district.”

To read the full article, click here.