D3Energy announces statewide floating solar lease in Florida
D3Energy, one of the largest installers of floating solar in the U.S., has announced an exclusive statewide master lease with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for its on-water solar projects.
The company has already installed the largest floating PV array in multiple states, including Utah and Ohio. With plans for further installations across the U.S., the Floridian firm has a blanket agreement for floatovoltaics in its home state.
The arrangement unlocks a potentially crucial new class of renewable energy infrastructure in the Sunshine State, D3Energy representatives say. The deal provides plenty of area for solar project installations without taking farmland, state conservation land, or developable real estate away from potential developers.
“In Florida, the bottleneck on new solar is rarely capital or technology — it’s available land. This lease solves that at the state level,” says Stetson Tchividjian, managing director of D3Energy. “It took years of work with FDOT to get here. With our first project now in the water and operating, we’re ready to roll this out to partners across the state.”
D3Energy says its teams have already begun work on floating solar projects under the agreement. Removing the more common site by site approach of most solar leasing agreements provides D3Energy and other developers a leg up in Florida.
Beginning the floating solar buildout
The sweeping agreement replaces piecemeal solar material procurement with one master framework, designed for consistent partnership with FDOT. That approach is already paying off, D3Energy says, as the company completed its first project under the new framework.
Developed in partnership with the Orlando Utilities Commission, the FDOT pond project is located in Orlando and was fully commissioned earlier this year. With the framework fully validated for similar projects, D3Energy has chosen to open the opportunity up to its partners across the Citrus State.
D3Energy officials estimate that FDOT’s pond portfolio could potentially support over 1 GW of floating solar power, if fully utilized. That would be enough to power about 200,000 homes across the state, while also saving 5,000 acres of land across the state by placing the projects on water.
The lease puts projects where demand is already the highest, with many ponds located near highways and electrical substations.
The floating solar approach also has the added benefit of mitigating damage during hurricane season. After Hurricane Milton in 2024, D3Energy reported that its ten Floridian solar installations received minimal damage and remained fully operational, whereas many ground-mounted solar panels were weather damaged in the process.
