Kennedy Space Center switched on a greener future Nov. 19 with the ceremonial commissioning of a first-of-its kind solar energy power plant for NASA. Florida Power & Light and Sunpower Corporation officials joined Center Director and former astronaut Bob Cabana to commission the one megawatt facility.

The solar farm covers five acres in Kennedy's Industrial area and is large enough to convert the sun's energy into one megawatt of electricity. That's enough energy to power about 110 homes. At Kennedy, the electricity will be funneled into the center's power grid.

The electricity production capitalizes on a source of renewable energy that does not produce any carbon emissions in the process.

"Having looked down on our environment from space, from 200 miles high, if you look at the Earth, it's this beautiful blue jewel of a planet and there's this thin little hazy line over the top of it and that's our atmosphere and it looks pretty fragile from up there, and it's all that's protecting us from the harmful ultraviolet radiation from space and extreme temperatures and I think anything we can do to help the environment and keep it better is really important."

NARRATOR:
Although spacecraft are often built with solar panels, Kennedy's new solar farm is the first time NASA has used a large and permanent facility for solar energy production.

It will be joined in the spring by a 10 megawatt facility on Kennedy land that will feed energy to all Florida Power & Light customers. For future development, a research facility has been proposed to explore renewable energy options and a larger solar farm on 500 acres. That could boost the energy capacity to 100 megawatts at Kennedy. (less info)