In Jacksonville, Florida, the city’s electric coop, Jacksonville Electric Authority, will soon begin buying “green” power from a 15-megawatt solar farm being built along U.S. 301, near JEA’s 1,270-megawatt natural-gas generation facility called Brandy Branch.

The 200,000 solar photovoltaic (PV) ground-mounted panels, on 100 acres owned by JEA on Jacksonville’s Westside, are being installed by New Jersey-based solar firm PSEG Solar Source LLC, with initial power provided as early as March and the balance coming online in July, or well ahead of the initially scheduled completion date in August.

JEA, the nation’s eighth largest community-owned electric utility, provides electricity to about 360,000 Jacksonville residents using primarily fossil fuels, including two of the nation’s first (and two of the world’s largest) “clean coal” demonstration facilities; fluidized bed combustion plants running on coal and petroleum coke.

PSEG, a diversified energy company, is the holding company for Public Service Electric and Gas Company, or PSE&G, a regulated public utility supplying gas and electricity in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region. PSEG also operates PSEG Power, PSEG Energy Holdings, and PSEG Services Corp.

JEA will buy the electricity from PSEG’s solar farm for $158 per megawatt-hour. This is more than twice as much as JEA spends to produce the same amount of electricity, but JEA officials see it as the most cost-effective way to deliver “green” power to subscribers per a proposed Florida legislature bill that would have established a 20-percent renewable portfolio standard (RFP) for Florida utilities.

The bill failed, but JEA and other utilities operating in the state recognize the inevitability that Florida will, some day, pass an RFP. JEA currently owns only about 1 megawatt of distributed solar generation. This newest solar farm will provide enough energy to power about 4,600 homes, and offset more than 15,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, or the equivalent of planting more than 386,700 trees or taking 2,884 cars off the road.

It’s also the most effective way for PSEG to capitalize on federal tax incentives under ARRA (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which provides 30 percent of solar costs as a tax write-off).

JEA customers concerned about the cost of the solar energy have been reassured, by none other than JEA’s CEO, Jim Dickenson, that the green energy measure will add a mere 20 cents a month to the average ratepayer’s bill, as a line item called a variable fuel charge, which has already been lowered due to coal’s falling cost.