FIU College of Engineering and Computing

The Energy, Power & Sustainability (EPS) Group at FIU was cordially invited by Florida Power & Light (FPL) to attend their launch of the FPL Miami-Dade Solar Energy Center on February 12, 2019. The center, a utility-scale solar farm sprawling across 465 acres of land with nearly 330,000 ground-mounted solar panels, has the capacity to cumulatively generate 74.5 MW of power. This solar power plant connects directly with FPL's transmission grid network and can potentially serve at least 15,000 homes in Miami-Dade County. This launch puts FPL ahead of all other American electric utilities in solar energy production and is a contribution towards the company's goal of putting up more than 30 million additional solar panels across Florida by 2030.

Arif Sarwat, director of the EPS Group and the FPL-FIU Solar Research Center at FIU and associate professor from FIU's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, spoke about the partnership between FPL and EPS, FIU. "We have a long-standing partnership on renewable integration and research with FPL NextEra Energy who are the leaders of renewable integration," said Sarwat. "We also take pride in being their primary research partner, and the launch of this utility-scale PV farm is a great example of our strengthening collaboration."

The EPS Group is composed of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from different engineering and science backgrounds with a shared mission to address the key challenges in energy, power, environment and policymaking. Sarwat's group is involved in developing innovative solutions for some of the critical challenges in the areas including but not limited to power systems, power electronics, renewable energy integration, big data analytics, cybersecurity and cyber-physical systems, advanced communications technologies, standards development, modeling and optimization, and resilient critical infrastructure. Together, these solutions are aimed at shaping the next generation of smart cities for a cleaner and greener future. Through its strong partnership with FPL, the group has continuous, real-time access to the on-campus 1.4 MW solar power plant. It collects data on energy production, local weather profiles, inverter conditions, and other grid variables that help analyze the power plant's performance across different seasons, build predictive models that contribute towards the reliable operation of the plant and its neighborhood grid, and serve as a testbed for FIU and FPL to evaluate future implementations of similar or larger scale in a smart city setting. The group also invests in transferring their research efforts into applications for industries and communities, dissemination for the public, and outreach activities for K-12 students. Many FIU students, including researchers at the undergraduate and graduate levels from the EPS Group, have been hired by FPL. FIU and the locality it is in are strategically positioned to leverage benefits from the power plant and its associated solar research center, and the continuing partnership between EPS at FIU and FPL will pave way for a more resilient, greener community.