The Tallahassee City Commission has authorized its staff to look into and begin pursuing adding more solar and battery storage to the city’s energy resources.
The city’s utility wants to add more renewable energy generation and battery energy storage to its electric system by 2030.
Michael Olsen, the city’s clean energy manager, told the commission the city had received dozens of early proposals.
“There were six specific locations among five vendors that had both the value and the potential to be good supports for our electric system. So, the item seeks to the approval from the Commission to further study the specifics at each of these six locations, the specifics of that interconnection, what upgrades we may need to do to our system, versus what might be carried by the project,” he said.
Commissioners unanimously supported further studies, but Commissioners Jeremy Matlow and Jack Porter voted against the motion.
They wanted the item should come back to the commission for final approval, rather than empowering city staff to move forward after those studies are completed. The other commissioners argued the support city staff's judgement.