Walt Disney World 50 megawatt solar facility comes online

Disney hates trees.

It's really impressive to see this installation. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they get to a point where the whole place runs on solar. They certainly have the land for it.

Can you park cars under the panels?

Badass

Makes you wonder why all of Las Vegas isn't solar powered by now.

I would imagine the Hoover Dam would have something to say about Vegas going solar.

Shades said:

I would imagine the Hoover Dam would have something to say about Vegas going solar.

You mean the dam with the large body of water behind it that’s constantly going down?

Nevada has suffered from a public utilities commission that was exceptionally hostile toward solar. They basically reduced net metering to insignificant and allowed the utilities to charge such high connection fees that you would actually take a bath on the cost of solar. Every installer left the state. There have since been some efforts and legislation to reverse that, but I don't know where it stands today. The doc series Years of Living Dangerously had an episode called "Blocking The Sun" that was hosted by Cecily Strong (yeah, from SNL) reviewing the situation there. It made Florida look smart by comparison, though the same episode covered a number of initiatives intended to move solar into the same terrible place. Fortunately our otherwise stupid voters stopped that.

That makes sense about the lack of solar farms now.

I did see a few here and there on my last trip into Vegas but it makes sense now.

From what I have read, Nevada addressed at least in large part the issues with respect to solar. Net metering is back. Solar installations have increased. The City of Las Vegas is 100% renewables. But that means the government buildings. Not the casinos/strip. Though sounds like casinos are moving to solar (even with having to pay significant fees to terminate supply agreements with Nevada power). There is talk of turning the Hoover Dam effectively into a large battery: use excess solar capacity to pump water back up into Lake Mead. There will be a lot of issues to address there though in terms of various interest groups.