Floating solar contractor D3Energy has signed a master lease with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to become the exclusive developer of the FDOT rainwater pool floating solar system.

D3Energy's first project under this framework is a floating solar array on the FDOT pond in Orlando, which was fully operational earlier this year.

In Florida, the bottleneck for new solar energy is rarely capital or technology, but available land. This lease solves this problem at the state level, "said Stetson Tchividjian, Managing Director of D3Energy. It took years of cooperation with FDOT to achieve this goal. With our first project now underwater and operational, we are ready to promote it to partners throughout the state. ”

Unlike most solar projects that adopt a site by site approach, FDOT Master Lease integrates statewide site access rights under a single agreement. This structure replaces scattered procurement with an FDOT coordination framework, eliminating the decentralization that slows down the deployment of clean energy in the state.

D3Energy estimates that the FDOT pond inventory can support over 1 GW of floating solar photovoltaic capacity across the state, enough to power over 200000 households in Florida, while saving approximately 5000 acres of Florida land by converting it into ground mounted solar energy. This arrangement also brings regular rental income to Florida, transforming passive infrastructure into a new source of income without taxpayers bearing any costs.

For investor owned utilities and municipal utilities in Florida, leasing places the new generation in places where there is already demand: substations, highways, and ponds next to the customers it will serve. The result is faster deployment, lower interconnection costs, and clean energy, supplementing rather than competing with Florida's land use.