Floating solar contractor D3Energy has signed a master lease with the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) to serve as the exclusive developer of floating solar systems on FDOT stormwater ponds.
D3Energy’s first project under the framework, a floating solar array on an FDOT pond in Orlando, was fully commissioned earlier this year.
“In Florida, the bottleneck on new solar is rarely capital or technology — it’s available land. This lease solves that at the state level,” said 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.”
Unlike most solar projects that take a site-by-site approach, the FDOT master lease consolidates statewide site access under a single agreement. The structure replaces piecemeal procurement with one master framework for FDOT coordination, eliminating the fragmentation that has slowed clean energy deployment in the state.
D3Energy estimates the FDOT pond inventory can support more than 1 GW of floating solar PV capacity statewide — enough to power over 200,000 Florida homes, while saving roughly 5,000 acres of Florida land from being converted to ground-mount solar. The arrangement also generates recurring lease revenue for the State of Florida, turning passive infrastructure into a new revenue stream at no cost to taxpayers.
For Florida’s investor-owned and municipal utilities the lease puts new generation where the demand already is: on ponds alongside the substations, highways and customers it will serve. The result is faster deployment, lower interconnection costs and clean energy that complements rather than competes with Florida’s land uses.
