DAVIE, Fla. – A parking lot at the Young at Art Museum is going green with a new 100-kilowatt parking canopy.
The solar parking canopy is the first of its kind in Broward County.
FPL fired up the enormous solar parking canopy Thursday in Davie. It is one of four large solar array installations that the company has planned throughout South Florida.
An FPL representative said that once the initial cost of installation is covered by power savings, the sustainable and diverse power source, which is wired directly into the grid, will begin to lower customers' bills.
The company also sponsored a new solar art exhibit inside the museum, which uses solar power to light a hanging cloud bank in changing colors. Both the working parking canopy and the exhibit are expected to generate solar power and learning power.
"This is an activity where kids will actually be able to see how the sun is really powering something and learn from it," Young at Art Museum CEO Mindy Shrago said.
According to FPL, the SolarNow canopy can produce as many as 140,000 kilowatt hours of "clean electricity."
"This is going to generate about 100 to 104 kilowatts, and that would power approximately 100 classrooms," Juliet Murphy Roulhac of FPL said.
According to FPL's website, the museum was chosen as one of the locations for its SolarNow project because of its "ability to usher youthful creative excitement into the process of building sustainability and resilience into our community."
Click here to learn more about FPL's SolarNow project.