Dec 11 - The Miami Herald

Dec. 11--It's not often a roofing company gets a visit from the governor, but then again, Advanced Green Technologies is not your typical roofing company.

The Fort Lauderdale company designs and installs roofs that are environmentally friendly. They produce everything from residential roofs to the solar-powered canopy that was built over the grandstand and the red carpet at this years Emmy Awards.

On Monday, the company was honored for its own building, at 2100 NW 21st Ave., which features its green technology: The roof of the 10,000-square-foot building is covered in quarter-inch-thick, hurricane-resistant solar laminates. Gov. Charlie Crist was there to sing its praises.

Advanced Green Technologies boasts that the building is the largest in the state powered by solar energy. Crist applauded them.

"This is a national security issue as well as an environmental issue," he said as he stood on the roof. He said solar energy is important, not just in saving our increasingly fragile environment, but in keeping the country free from dependence on foreign oil.

The panels on the roof of the Advanced Green Technologies mixed-use office and warehouse building interconnect to the Florida Power & Light Co. utility grid. Any overproduction is fed back to the grid, turning the meter backward.

In the past 17 months, the state Department of Environmental Protection's Solar Energy System Incentives Program received 230 applications for residential and commercial buildings with plans for installing solar photovoltaic power, said Casey Mahoney, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

While keeping with environmental standards, the panels have the consistency of duct tape.

"Solar panels these days are very attractive," said Bob Reedy, solar energy research director of the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida. "Nobody does the superstructure anymore, not like you saw in the old days."

Reedy added that while the size of the building the governor visited on Monday may be impressive, size is not a parameter of performance.

"Even a small project can have the same significance," he said.

While there are outspoken activists on the topic and up-front government financial incentives for those who choose to "go green," many of the greening initiatives are coming from competing private companies.

"I'm very proud of what these Florida corporations are doing. In my opinion, they are the leaders in green initiatives.

"It's people that make a difference. It's private enterprise that makes a difference," Crist said.

For information on the grants, go to the DEP website, www.dep.state.fl.us/, and enter Solar Energy System Incentives Program in the search window.

-----

To see more of The Miami Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.