How much land is 16 acres? You could probably easily fit about 10 small houses in an acre so 16 acres is about the size of 1,600 160 small houses or 64 749.7028 meter squared for those of you in international countries.

Florida Gulf Coast University, a college opened in 1997 with a focus on the environment, was given $8.5 million by politicians to start a big solar farm of 16 acres on its campus.

The school’s focus is environmental sustainability and it has a special center dedicated to that purpose, but Shepard said using renewable energy on campus had been largely ignored.

“We were just focused on different things,” he said. “We need to practice what we preach and think about reducing our dependency on fossil fuels.”

During the 2008-2009 academic year, FGCU expects to spend more than $3.5 million on energy and uses an average of 1.4 megawatts per day.

The new solar farm, including the panels purchased with private donations, would generate 2 megawatts per day.

“The sun is free so there’s no risk the price will go up,” Fenton said. “The more solar we can do, the better.”

[via ecolocalizer palmbeachpost]

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