The Florida Department of Transportation and D3Energy announced the successful commissioning of the first project in an ongoing partnership to develop floating solar projects on stormwater ponds within state highway rights-of-way. D3Energy’s master lease is a first-of-its-kind arrangement that could offer a new model for solar siting in land-constrained markets.
Under the lease, D3Energy holds the sole right to develop floating photovoltaic systems on FDOT-managed stormwater ponds across the state. The company estimates the agreement could support more than 1 GW of floating solar capacity statewide, enough to power more than 200,000 Florida homes.
The first project under the framework, a floating solar array on an FDOT pond in Orlando, developed in partnership with Orlando Utilities Commission, was commissioned earlier this year. With that project now operational, D3Energy said it plans to make the model available to partners across the state.
Expanding solar siting with floating PV
The agreement comes as the U.S. solar industry continues to grow, but developers face persistent siting and deployment constraints, including interconnection delays, permitting hurdles, local zoning restrictions, and community opposition. Floating solar, also known as floatovoltaics, has long been viewed as a niche technology in the U.S. market. If the FDOT model proves replicable, it could help expand the types of sites considered viable for solar development while addressing environmental concerns.
Unlike traditional ground-mounted projects, floating solar arrays are installed on water bodies such as reservoirs, ponds, industrial basins, and stormwater management systems. That approach can reduce competition with farmland, conservation land, and real estate, while placing generation closer to existing infrastructure and electricity demand.
For Florida, that siting advantage is central to this agreement. The state has strong solar resources but also faces intense competition for land among housing, agriculture, conservation, transportation, and commercial development. D3Energy estimates that the maximum potential output of floating solar capacity developed under this contract is equivalent to that produced by roughly 5,000 acres of land for ground-mounted solar. By using stormwater ponds already managed by the state, D3Energy and FDOT are turning passive transportation infrastructure into potential energy infrastructure.
A new model for solar infrastructure
The structure of the agreement may be as important as the technology itself. Most solar projects require individual site control, permitting, and procurement processes. The FDOT lease creates a single statewide framework, which could reduce the fragmentation that can slow distributed clean energy development.
By enabling public agencies, utilities, and municipalities to aggregate sites under master agreements, floating solar can shift from isolated projects to scalable infrastructure solutions, fostering a sense of potential growth.
The broader technical potential is significant. National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers have found that federally owned or regulated reservoirs in the U.S. could host large amounts of floating solar capacity, with a theoretical potential for 1,042 GW of development, though only a fraction of that potential is likely to be developed after accounting for environmental, operational, and site-specific constraints.
Floating solar offers operational benefits, such as water cooling the panels leading to efficiency gains, and reduced evaporation of water resources, reinforcing the technology’s practicality and reliability.
Still, the technology faces challenges. Floating systems often carry higher upfront costs than conventional ground-mounted solar, and projects must consider additional factors, including water depth, anchoring, mooring, wave action, storm exposure, maintenance access, potential impacts on aquatic ecosystems, and economic feasibility. Understanding these costs is essential for stakeholders evaluating the viability of floating solar projects.
The U.S. market for floating PV remains relatively young. While floating solar has grown rapidly in parts of Asia and other land-constrained regions, domestic deployment has been modest compared with conventional utility-scale solar. Many U.S. projects remain small, serving water treatment plants, municipal loads, resorts, industrial facilities, or local utilities.
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