Arcadia, Oct 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The US president Barack Obama began his speech at Florida Power & Light company, by thanking everyone at the company for their great leadership and vision, from Lew Hay to Greg Bove who is a construction manager at the company and was responsible for showing the President around the company.

Obama spoke at length about the specifics of the plant, saying that it will produce enough power to serve the entire city of Arcadia, and how its construction was a major boost to the local economy, since it created nearly 400 jobs in that area. He said that over the next three decades, the clean energy from this plant would save 575,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which is the equivalent of removing more than 4,500 cars from the road each year for the life of the project. He was very happy with the environmental concerns of the company.

He spoke at length about the Recovery Act, “I’m pleased to announce that under the Recovery Act, we are making the largest-ever investment in a smarter, stronger, and more secure electric grid. This investment will come in the form of 100 grants totaling $3.4 billion — grants that will go to private companies, utilities, cities, and other partners who have applied with plans to install smart grid technologies in their area.”

He was very happy with the ‘green’ technology behind the smart meters. Smart meters allow the person to actively monitor how much energy his family is using by the month, by the week, by the day, or even by the hour. So coupled with other great technologies, this will help anybody to manage their electricity use and their budget at the same time, allowing them to conserve electricity during high-priced times, such as summer.

He said, “Through these investments in a variety of smart grid technologies, utilities like Florida Power & Light will also be able to monitor the performance of its electricity grid in real time, which means they’ll be able to identify and correct service interruptions more quickly and effectively. And all this information will help increase renewable energy generation, provide support for plug-in electric vehicles, and reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change.”