Duke Energy To Build 2 New Solar Power Facilities In Florida

Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE:DUK) recently announced that its subsidiary — Duke Energy Florida — will construct two new solar power plants in Florida. The construction of the Twin Rivers Solar Power Plant in Hamilton County and the Santa Fe Solar Power Plant in Columbia County are expected start from March 2020.

Both the projects, each with 74.9 megawatt (MW) solar power capacity, are expected to remove approximately 600 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year in the state after their expected completion in late 2020.

Steady Solar Project Developments in Florida

Duke Energy Florida is committed to provide cleaner environment to its customers in the state on a consistent basis.

Florida, termed as Sunshine state, is an appropriate region for harnessing solar energy. Recently, the company completed two solar plants in the state. On Dec 9, 2019, the Lake Placid Solar Power Plant was completed in Highlands County with 45 MW solar power facilities. In Dec 18, the Trenton Solar Power Plant with 74.9 MW facilities was completed in Gilchrist County.

Moreover, there are other two projects — Columbia Solar Power Plant and The DeBary Solar Power Plant — that are under construction and expected to begin their services from April and June, 2020, respectively. In Florida, the company is set to build up to 700 MW of solar projects by 2022. In sync with this plan, Duke Energy will invest nearly $1 billion from 2018-2022.

Also, NextEra Energy’s (NYSE:NEE) primary subsidiary — Florida Power & Light Company — announced its “30-by-30” plan to install more than 30 million solar panels in Florida by 2030.

Solar Energy Portfolio Enhancement

With rising environment awareness, the adoption of renewable energy has increased worldwide. Moreover, solar energy will be a vital resource when renewables become the primary source of power generation. Duke Energy is undertaking efforts to expand its renewable asset base. With respect to its commercial renewables business, the company continued to expand its wind and solar portfolio in 2018, with nearly 2,900 megawatt (MW) capacity across 14 states. The portfolio comprises 21 wind and 64 solar facilities.

Along with these developments, the company is acquiring existing solar power plants. In September 2019, Duke Energy Renewables bought a Texas-based solar project — Rambler — from Recurrent Energy that is a subsidiary of Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ) . In January 2020, the company acquired a portfolio of nine solar projects in the state of Georgia, which comes under the Renewable Energy Development Initiative of Georgia Power — a unit of The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) . We believe that such initiatives will expand Duke Energy’s commercial renewables footprint and help it on its objective to cut down carbon di-oxide emission to zero level by 2050.

Price Movement

In a year’s time, shares of Duke Energy have increased 17.1% compared with the industry’s 28.5% growth.

Zacks Rank

Duke Energy currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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