Florida's strong sunshine could make it an exporter of electrical power in the near future, a leader in the industry is telling people at a local conference this week.

"Florida could become a net energy exporter," said John O'Donnell, executive vice president of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ausra, in an advance interview with the South Florida Business Journal.

"The costs will be 20 percent higher here than in the desert Southwest, but still lower than the rest of the southeast. Places like Georgia and the Carolinas may want Florida's power," he said.

Ausra is the company hired by Florida Power & Light Co., a subsidiary of Juno Beach-based FPL Group, to build the world's largest solar power plant somewhere in Florida in the next few years. The utility is currently looking for a 2-square-mile piece of land in Central Florida, possibly on former orange groves east of Tampa.

O'Donnell will give a presentation Tuesday morning to the 2008 Energy Frontiers International conference at the Mayfair Hotel in Coconut Grove.

O'Donnell said Florida has too many cloudy days to compete with southwestern states like Arizona for solar dominance. However, the subtropical latitude means solar is more productive than other U.S locations yearlong.

O'Donnell is also expected to call on the U.S. Senate to extend solar energy tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of 2008.

"We need a stable investment environment," he said.

One of the country's largest electric utilities, FP&L is planning to build 300 megawatts of solar generating capacity in Florida using Ausra's solar thermal technology.

According to estimates, this new facility will avoid nearly 11 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over a 20-year period.

As a first step, FP&L expects to construct a 10-megawatt pilot project at an existing power plant in the next year.

The 300-megawatt project should produce about 1,000 construction jobs, and Ausra is expected to build a robotics assembly plant to produce the solar panels locally. The large plant will continue to employ about 200 people to run it, including "window" washers to keep the solar panels clean, O'Donnell said.