Gulf Power forged a unique partnership in 2010 with Emerald Coast Utilities Authority to use reclaimed water and improve water quality in Escambia and Pensacola bays.

ECUA shut down its Main Street wastewater plant that stood in a coastal flood zone and built a new one — the ECUA Central Water Reclamation Facility — which allowed Gulf Power’s Gulf Clean Energy Center (formerly Plant Crist) to gain a clean source of water to operate its new scrubber control system.

More than 5 billion gallons of reclaimed water have been recycled since 2010. The reclaimed water cools equipment used to generate electricity and operate the scrubber system. Putting this water to work now establishes the ECUA Central Water Reclamation Facility as a zero-discharge facility, and Gulf Power is able to help preserve a natural resource by using less water from the Escambia River.

This partnership received a 2010 Sustainable Florida Best Practices Award from the Florida Collins Center for Public Policy; the 2011 Chairman’s Award from the Southeastern Electric Exchange; the 2012 York Award from the Florida Water Environment Association for Reuse Customer of the Year; and a national award from the WateReuse Association as Water Reuse Customer of the Year in 2012.

Methane gas seeping from municipal landfills is one of the most significant forms of greenhouse gas — 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But when that gas is captured, it becomes a valuable form of renewable energy.

Gulf Power partnered with Escambia County to produce our first renewable energy project, the Perdido Landfill Gas-to-Energy facility. The facility started commercial operation in 2010, producing renewable energy and reducing harmful landfill methane gas emissions while providing revenue for Escambia County.

Escambia County has a collection system in place and pipes the gas to the facility, where it is processed for use by the specially designed Caterpillar 1,600-kilowatt landfill gas generators. Water separated from the landfill gas will be re-used by the landfill for its leachate system.

Since commercial operation in 2010 to August 2018, 3.96 billion cubic feet of methane gas has been burned to generate more than 193 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, enough to power more than 1,900 homes annually.

Gulf Power will soon become the leading purchaser of wind generation among Florida utilities and the first of its kind in the state. The new project will be called Kingfisher Wind and will be located in Piedmont, OK, where conditions are favorable for wind energy.

The Kingfisher Wind project is expected to begin commercial operation by the end of the year. A total of 89 of the project’s wind turbines will supply 178 megawatts to Gulf Power, which is enough energy to power approximately 50,700 homes per year.

Additionally, Gulf Power announced in January that the utility is partnering with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force to build solar energy farms at three different facilities across Northwest Florida. The solar energy farms have already been approved by the FPSC and will be constructed at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach (30 megawatts), Holley Field in Navarre (40 megawatts) and Saufley Field in Pensacola (50 megawatts) and are expected to be in service by this summer.

The ground remains at a relatively constant temperature throughout the year, providing a warm heat source in the winter and a cool heat sink in summer. Geothermal heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems provide a mechanism to transfer heat to or from the ground and can save customers up to 40 percent on their heating and cooling costs.

Gulf Power has promoted geothermal HVAC since the mid-1990s. Today, there are almost 3,000 residential installations and more than 8,500 tons of capacity installed in commercial buildings for a total of 17,000 tons of geothermal HVAC systems in our service area — resulting in almost nine megawatts of peak demand reduction, which is enough power to serve about 2,600 homes.