The Orange County Convention Center's massive rooftop will soon shoulder the largest solar project in Florida and the Southeast at one megawatt of clean renewable solar energy. County officials granted the contract to Johnson Controls, Inc. in partnership with Solar Source on July 8, 2008 to blanket the roof of the nation's second-largest convention center with panels that can turn sunshine into energy, without producing pollution.
It will be a showcase for the whole state of Florida not just Orange County Convention Center that each year brings more than 300 events to the Central Florida area. As a result, roughly 1.4 million attendees contribute approximately $1.4 billion to the area's economic impact each year.
These efforts will continue in 2008, with the solar PV project. The PV system will utilize high efficiency flat-plate collectors, expected to occupy approximately 200,000 square feet of roof space on the North/South Building. Current plans call for the completion of the solar array within 12 months.
The benefits of generating electricity with solar energy include reducing energy costs, while at the same time helping to reduce global warming and our dependence on foreign fuels. The one-megawatt solar PV system will generate 1,300 to 1,500 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, which is equivalent to the power used by 80 to 100 typical homes, and it will do this without producing any greenhouse gas emissions.
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