FAMU, Duke Energy open Rattler Renewable Energy Center in Hernando County
A 74.9-megawatt solar site on 800 leased acres west of Brooksville is projected to save Duke Energy Florida customers $250 million over its life.
The new Rattler Renewable Energy Center in Hernando County is supposed to do more than generate power. The 74.9-megawatt solar site on 800 acres leased by Florida A&M University is projected to save Duke Energy Florida customers an estimated $250 million over its operational lifetime while deepening FAMU’s footprint in the Brooksville area.
FAMU and Duke Energy marked the opening on May 8, tying the project to a broader expansion of solar generation across Florida. The site is one of four solar projects Duke Energy Florida filed under a settlement agreement approved by the Florida Public Service Commission in August 2024. It also sits in the first phase of a larger plan to build 12 solar sites between 2025 and 2027, a group Duke Energy says will total 900 megawatts and save customers about $3 billion over their lifetimes.
The Hernando County project is especially notable because it is built on land already linked to FAMU’s agricultural mission. The Florida A&M University College of Agriculture and Food Sciences operates the Brooksville Agricultural Research and Environmental Research Station in Hernando County, a 3,800-acre research site transferred from USDA-ARS in 2015. That existing presence gives the solar center a local context that goes beyond a single utility project and points to a longer-term university role in the county.
Duke Energy Florida state president Melissa Seixas said the company’s partnership with FAMU, along with collaboration from Hernando County, helped establish another cost-effective solar site for customers. FAMU president Marva Johnson described the project as a living expression of the university’s mandate to serve, educate, discover and deliver practical solutions. U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis said partnerships like this can produce real results for consumers, while Hernando County administrator Jeff Rogers said the project supports safe, reliable and cost-effective power generation and also strengthens the agricultural research FAMU is conducting in the county. Greater Hernando County Chamber CEO Ashley Hofecker praised the effort as an example of higher education, industry and community partners working together.
Duke Energy said it already owns, operates and maintains more than 30 solar sites in Florida totaling about 1,700 megawatts, and it projects more than 6,100 megawatts of utility-scale solar capacity online by the end of 2033. In Hernando County, the Rattler Renewable Energy Center looks less like a ceremonial one-off than another piece of a growing energy and research footprint that now has measurable local stakes in land use, utility costs and the county’s long-term role in Florida’s solar buildout.
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