LEEDing the Way

The non-profit U.S. Green Building Council developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system to evaluate buildings based on their environmental impacts and to ultimately encourage sustainability. Projects pursuing LEED certification earn points for sustainable features, such as solar panels, energy-efficient lights and native landscaping. A building needs at least 40 points to be LEED-certified.

Florida Projects by LEED Level
LEED Level	Projects
Certified (40-49 points)	331
Silver (50-59 points)	462
Gold (60-79 points)	448
Platinum (80-110 points)	37

Since its founding in 2000, the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), a non-profit based in Orlando, has certified more than 16,000 commercial and residential projects statewide.

Sustainable Communities

Alys Beach

Alys Beach, a master-planned beachfront community in the Panhandle, features buildings with white roofs and walls to reflect heat from the sun. Cobblestone streets allow rainwater to naturally filter into the soil below, reducing problems associated with runoff. Native plants are used to minimize the need for water, fertilizer and pesticides.

Although construction on the first houses in Alys began in 2004, the development was slow to take off because of a spate of hurricanes, the recession and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Today, the community includes 125 residences and 18,000 square feet of commercial space.

Developer EBSCO, based in Birmingham, Ala., requires all homes to be certified as green by the FGBC, making Alys the first community in Florida to do so. Among the homes’ green features are spray foam insulation to reduce air leakage and energy- and water-efficient appliances.

Babcock Ranch

With its own solar farm and extensive nature trail network, Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida could become the most sustainable community in the U.S.

Palm Beach Gardens-based developer Kitson & Partners donated land to FPL to build a 440-acre on-site solar farm that’s expected to supply the entire community’s electric needs.

Additional green features include 50 miles of nature trails, driverless electric public transportation and a water management system designed to protect marshes and prevent floods. More than half of the land is designated for parks, trails and other green spaces.

Babcock Ranch, which encompasses 18,000 acres in Charlotte and Lee counties, broke ground last year on the first of nearly 20,000 planned housing units. Plans also call for 6 million square feet of commercial, educational and public space over the next two decades.

As part of the first phase of construction, more than 1,000 homes are being built. Home prices will range from the low $200,000s to nearly $1 million, says Syd Kitson.

Green Governments

In the mid-2000s, the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC) created a certification program to encourage local governments to be more sustainable. Since then, FGBC has certified about 70 green cities and counties.

Under the organization’s certification program, local governments earn points for eco-friendly policies and practices, which can include everything from using less water in ball field maintenance to making streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Miami-Dade County has established itself as a leader in green governance, says C.J. Davila, executive director of FGBC. Besides incorporating green development principles into its own buildings, Miami-Dade has an expedited permit review process for green private-sector projects, he points out.

“In Miami, you have huge high-rises right next to a seawall. If ever there’s a place where you can see the effects of sea-level rise, that’s it,” Davila says.

Going green helps local governments reduce water and energy use, save money and please residents concerned about the environment, he says. “It’s about being good to the planet and also saving taxpayer dollars.”

C.J. Davila became executive director of the Florida Green Building Coalition this year, succeeding Suzanne Cook, who led the organization for more than a decade. Davila previously was director of the Orlando Regional Realtor Foundation, a non-profit that promotes affordable housing.

Green Demonstration House

In 1994, Sarasota’s Florida House opened as the first of its kind in the U.S., demonstrating green construction materials and methods to builders and residents.

Located on the Sarasota County Technical Institute campus, the bungalow showcased energy-efficient appliances and lights, tile floors made of recycled windshield glass, airtight windows and high ceilings to prevent heat buildup.

In 2009, however, the house was moved to make way for a high school. It then fell dormant until a fundraising effort enabled it to reopen three years ago as a showcase for sustainable retrofits.

Today, Florida House runs on solar power generated from photovoltaic panels on the roof and in the yard. The house also has eco-friendly bamboo kitchen cabinets and cork floors, high-efficiency air conditioning, wind-resistant windows that deflect heat from the sun, and a shaded car-charging station for electric vehicles. The yard features native plants, edible fruits and vegetables, a chicken coop, beehives for honey production, permeable pavers and cisterns that collect and reuse rainwater.

“The focus has shifted to green living and incorporating new technologies,” says Michele Mician, executive director of the non-profit Florida House Institute, which operates the demonstration home. “It doesn’t have to be expensive. You can do a little bit at a time. The first thing to do is seal your house and look for leaks.”

Number of certified and registered projects:
Category	Green Projects
Office/Mixed-Use	973
Retail	827
Education	406
Public Assembly/Religious Worship	212
Residential	155
Health Care	150
Public Order and Safety	112
Lodging	102
Industrial Manufacturing	82
Other	64
Service	62
Laboratory	55
Military Base	54
Warehouse and Distribution	52
Data Center	3
Source: Florida chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council Note: Registered projects are those that have begun the process of pursuing LEED certification.

Green Business Space

More than 115 million square feet of business space in Florida is LEED-certified — the equivalent of 191 Empire State Buildings. All told, about 3,310 commercial projects statewide are LEED-certified or LEED-registered.

This year, Manatee County became the state’s first government to earn platinum status by the Florida Green Building Coalition. The county’s green measures include making a new downtown Bradenton chiller plant energy efficient (photo left), transitioning to single-stream recycling (allowing residents to mix together plastic, glass, paper and metal in hopes of increasing recycling rates) and sponsoring such events as a teen fashion show featuring recycled clothing.

Green Home Improvement Financing

Leon County has teamed with Florida Development Finance Corp. and San Diego-based Renovate America to provide financing for energysaving home improvements.

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing covers the cost of solar panels, wind-resistant windows and other upgrades for homeowners with at least 10% equity. Homeowners repay the debt via an assessment on their property tax bills over five to 25 years.

The county says the financing program will help residents “go solar, protect their families from storms or replace a broken HVAC with an energy-efficient upgrade.” The county also says jobs are created through the expansion of the local home improvement market. More than a dozen contractors and vendors have been certified for the program.

Nationally, PACE has drawn some criticism from Realtors, who say homeowners don’t always understand that the debt is tied to their property and can cause problems when they try to sell or refinance a mortgage.

Utility-Scale Solar

Lower equipment costs and technological improvements are fueling a boom in solar farms across the state. Since 2009, the price for utility-scale solar has dropped 85%, bringing solar closer to the price of conventional power generation.

Led by utility-owned solar, Florida’s solar industry is projected to add four times as much capacity over the next five years as it did in the past five years.

Duke Energy Florida has abandoned plans to build a nuclear plant in west Florida and instead will install 700 megawatts of solar capacity. The utility expects to spend $6 billion on solar panels, battery storage, grid-modernization projects and electric vehicle charging areas over the next four years.

Juno Beach-based FPL is developing eight solar plants with enough capacity to power 120,000 homes. Gulf Power recently installed three solar plants at military bases in northwest Florida. And Tampa Electric, which built its first utility-scale solar project in 2016, now plans to add 600 megawatts of solar at 10 sites across west-central Florida over the next four years. When the projects are complete, nearly 7% of TECO’s energy generation will come from solar power.

In Tallahassee, the first of two planned solar farms, a 20-megawatt facility, is under construction at the airport. The second facility is to have twice as much capacity when it comes online in 2019. Origis Energy will build, own and operate the solar farms for Tallahassee’s municipal electric utility, and the city will pay for energy fed into the grid.

Orlando Utilities Commission has doubled its solar energy production with a new plant in east Orange County. Orlando’s city council unanimously passed a resolution in August calling for 100% renewable energy use in the city by 2050.

Residential Solar

In addition to utility-sized solar, small-scale residential solar also is expanding. But while the cost of rooftop solar panels has declined in recent years, many homeowners find that the installation process remains expensive and complicated.

The League of Women Voters of Florida wants to bolster solar energy adoption by making buying easier. Last year, the organization joined with the national non-profit Solar United Neighbors to help homeowners form local solar purchasing cooperatives.

The co-ops solicit competitive bids from local solar installers and use their collective buying power to obtain discounts on residential installations. Members sign their own contracts but benefit from the group’s bulk discount and shared expertise, says Angela DeMonbreun, program director for Solar United Neighbors of Florida. Membership is free and carries no obligation to buy solar.

So far, more than 3,400 people have joined nearly 20 solar co-ops statewide, DeMonbreun says. “It’s still intimidating to navigate the whole process. But prices have come down, so the economics are right,” she says. “We give homeowners the information they need to facilitate the process from beginning to end.”

Meanwhile, the city of South Miami has taken an aggressive step to promote residential solar, requiring new homes to have solar panels. Last summer, the city commission, led by South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard, a biology professor at Florida International University, voted 4-1 to make solar power mandatory for all new residential construction. The law also applies to some home expansion and renovation projects.

South Miami is the first Florida city — and the first U.S. city outside California — to pass such a requirement. The St. Petersburg City Council dropped considerations of a similar similar ordinance in August after public outcry.

Florida’s Solar Industry

• 785 – Total solar megawatts installed
• 12 – National ranking
• 86,000 – Homes powered by solar
• 0.36% – Percentage of state’s electricity that comes from solar
• 8,260 – Solar jobs
• 499 – Solar companies in the state

Source: Solar Energy Industries Association

Solar Capacity

The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that Florida homeowners, businesses and utilities will install 3,615 megawatts of solar capacity over the next five years — nearly four times the amount of solar installed in the past five years.

Florida’s annual installed solar capacity:

• 2012 – 24.2 megawatts
• 2013 – 26.3 megawatts
• 2014 – 21.6 megawatts
• 2015 – 42.5 megawatts
• 2016 – 404.7 megawatts

Source: Solar Energy Industries Association

• Last year, Miami Beach began requiring developers of projects bigger than 7,000 square feet to conserve energy and water or pay the city a fee equal to 5% of the total construction cost.
• This year, Manatee County became the state’s first government to earn platinum status by the Florida Green Building Coalition. The county’s green measures include making a new downtown Bradenton chiller plant energy efficient (photo left), transitioning to single-stream recycling (allowing residents to mix together plastic, glass, paper and metal in hopes of increasing recycling rates) and sponsoring such events as a teen fashion show featuring recycled clothing.
• Two years ago, TECO built its first utility-scale solar project on the top floor of a parking garage at Tampa International Airport. The 2-megawatt array produces enough solar electricity to power 250 homes. Earlier this year, TECO completed a second, 23-megawatt solar array at the company’s Big Bend power station in Apollo Beach. The utility also has a new 1.8-megawatt solar system at Legoland in Winter Haven.
• Utilities estimate that a single megawatt of solar energy can power 150 to 200 homes.
• Last year, nearly 16,000 business and residential utility customers in Florida had solar systems, up from about 11,600 in 2015.
• More than half of the state’s total solar capacity comes from utilityowned photovoltaic installations, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

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