Florida Power & Light Company, a subsidiary of FPL Group, is set to break ground this week on what is being described as the world's first hybrid solar plant and the first utility-scale solar facility in Florida.

FPL said the project being built near Indiantown features an innovative hybrid design that will use solar thermal technology to offset the use of natural gas at FPL's existing combined cycle plant in Martin County.

The ceremony includes the unveiling of a 26-foot-long scale model representative of the more than 180,000 mirrors that will constitute the Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center solar array when it is complete.

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp will attend the Florida Power & Light Solar Plant Power groundbreaking ceremony.

It was in late June when the company had shared plans for its Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center along with two other solar energy projects. Planned for construction to commence by the beginning of 2009 at FPL's existing Martin Plant site, it had shared that the Martin project will provide up to 75 megawatts of solar thermal capacity in an innovative "hybrid" design that will connect to an existing combined-cycle power plant.