FPL seeks to make solar less attractive
Net metering changes will put rooftop systems out of reach for lower incomes
Florida Power & Light is urging lawmakers to slash the value of credits they must pay to customers with rooftop solar systems for excess energy they produce, citing concerns that customers with modest incomes are subsidizing affluent homeowners who can afford solar panels.
But clean energy proponents say reimbursing solar customers at lower rates for energy they send back to the grid will put rooftop solar systems out of reach for middle- and lower-income homeowners, who count on being able to recoup the cost of installing the panels through lower energy bills.
Critics say the proposed changes to the state’s “net metering” program would make it difficult for prospective solar customers to estimate how much they’ll save on future utility bills and discourage homeowners from purchasing the systems.
While a new rooftop solar system can cost $20,000 or more, some homeowners who purchase those systems anticipate saving thousands of dollars per year on their utility bills and view rooftop panels as an investment that eventually will pay for itself.
“I think with net metering, what you do see is greater middle-class and lower-income access to solar,” said Jim Rossi, a professor of energy law at Vanderbilt University. “Once you take that away, it’s extremely difficult for a middle-income customer and almost impossible for a lower-income person to access rooftop solar.”
When lawmakers first approved Florida’s net metering program in 2008, it was
intended as an incentive for people to install solar panels on their homes. But proponents of the legislation argue that non-solar customers, who pay a greater share of the costs associated with maintaining the electrical grid, are now unfairly subsidizing the growing number of customers with solar panels.
“We now fast-forward 15 years and that incentive becomes costly for the non-rooftop solar customers,” said Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Orange Park, who sponsored the Senate’s proposal.
Analysis undercuts wealth claim
Florida’s net-metering program allows utility customers who install renewable energy sources, like solar panels, on their homes or businesses to sell excess electricity those devices generate back to utility companies.
The initiative, which began when roughly 200 utility customers had rooftop solar panels, was intended to encourage the growth of the burgeoning industry. Today, more than 90,000 Floridians have solar panels on their homes.
The proposed rehaul of the state’s net-metering program would pertain to customers of investor-owned utilities such as FPL and Duke Energy, which are regulated by the Public Service Commission.
An amended version of the Senate bill would gradually phase in the proposed changes through 2028 and grandfather customers who own solar panels by the end of 2022 under the current rules for 20 years.
Roughly 99.5% of FPL’s 5.6 million customers do not have solar panels and they pay an additional $30 million to subsidize other customers who do, spokesman Chris McGrath wrote in an email.
That amounts to less than $6 per customer annually.
And though proponents of the legislation have characterized homeowners with solar panels as relatively wealthy, a Senate staff analysis cited FPL data that shows a third of the utility’s solar customers have incomes less than $50,000 per year and two-thirds have incomes less than $100,000.
Sterling Clifford, the manager of government affairs for Sunnova Energy, noted that when FPL successfully petitioned the Public Service Commission last year to raise its customers’ electricity rates, it did not cite the cost of crediting solar panel customers as a factor.
“There is also nothing in this bill that would require money to go back to consumers,” Clifford said during a recent Senate committee meeting. “If it passes, rates for solar customers will go up. No one else’s rates will go down.”
Though the legislation does not mandate that the savings be passed along to customers, FPL insists that they would.
“Lowering the credit for excess rooftop solar generation lowers the costs of procuring power, which would be reflected in customer bills,” McGrath wrote.
The legislation is a key priority for FPL, one of the largest donors to state legislative campaigns. Bradley and Rep, Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, who sponsored the House’s version of the legislation, received the language for those bills from lobbyists for FPL, the Miami Herald reported.
Consultants for the utility who at the time worked for Alabama-based firm Matrix LLC in past years have also provided extensive funding to “Energy Fairness,” an anti-net metering think tank whose work has been cited by McClure to bolster his criticism of the policy.
The same operatives played a key role in orchestrating the state’s “ghost” candidate scandal in 2020 while working closely with FPL executives, according to internal Matrix documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
The consultants billed FPL for more than $3 million days before they began moving money through a dark-money entity that paid for advertisements championing independent candidates in three Florida Senate races. The ads were worded to appeal to progressive voters, part of an apparent scheme to siphon votes from the Democrats in those races.
FPL has insisted its employees had no role in the spoiler candidate scheme. But the Florida Senate is particularly important to the utility company because it must confirm appointments the governor makes to the Public Service Commission, the body that oversees FPL and recently voted to let the utility giant raise rates by nearly $5 billion over the next four years.
A new group called “Seniors Across America” is also supporting the net metering legislation. The nonprofit organization, formed in June by prominent Republican attorney Bucky Mitchell, is led by John Grant, a former state lawmaker who has previously lobbied for bills backed by FPL and for a group called 60 Plus Association that was backed by the Koch brothers, the wealthy mega-donors to conservative causes.
Grant has testified in favor of the proposals during recent committee meetings, saying that the growing number of solar customers would disproportionately hurt senior citizens, “most of whom, for various reasons, can’t or won’t have solar.”
Seniors Across America also has sent out several text messages in recent weeks, promising the legislation would make utility bills “lower and fairer.”
“Seniors without solar on their homes should not pay higher bills at the expense of homes with solar,” one of the messages read.
‘Can’t calculate the savings’
The promise of future savings was a key part of Michael Cohen’s decision to install solar panels on the roof of his Orlando home in 2015, as he and his wife were preparing to retire. Cohen said he spent $11,000 on his system, which generates enough energy for his household’s use.
He estimates his investment saves him $70 to $100 per month.
“That’s a better investment than a CD in a bank,” said Cohen, one of the co-founders of Solar United Neighbors of Florida, a nonprofit organization that helps people purchase discounted solar panels through co-op agreements.
If the Legislature goes along with the proposal pushed by FPL, future solar panel owners won’t see the same benefit.
Instead of being credited at the retail rate for energy they sell back to the grid, they’ll be credited at the wholesale rate, which is roughly 30% of the rate customers pay. They’ll also still have to pay the full retail rate for energy they purchase at times when their panels aren’t generating enough for their household consumption.
And critics say it will be difficult for prospective solar panel owners to estimate how much they’ll save. That’s because the credits they receive for excess energy produced will be based on “thousands of instant transactions” calculated throughout the day, said Tyson Grinstead, the director of public policy for Sunrun, a residential solar panel and battery company.
For example, a customer could be charged a retail rate for energy during part of the day when their panels aren’t generating enough power to meet their needs, then receive credit at the wholesale price for sending energy back to the grid during another part of the day.
“They just can’t calculate the savings — it’s too hard,” Grinstead said during a recent Senate committee meeting.
Bruce and Gemma Dehnbostel paid $25,000 to install panels on their Seminole County home in 2016, spurred by a desire to help fight climate change and a belief in renewable energy. But the couple also wanted to cut their monthly energy bills. They’re able to generate as much energy as their household consumes, they say, resulting in a savings of just over $2,000 per year.
The Dehnbostels often talk to their neighbors and friends about the benefits of solar energy and worry that the initial investment required to install rooftop panels will deter many homeowners if they’re unsure of how much they will save on future energy bills.
“I think it will discourage people,” Gemma Dehnbostel said. “Sure, it will.”
The Dehnbostels are customers of Duke Energy, which serves a broad swath of Central Florida. A spokesperson said Duke has not taken a position on the net-metering legislation.
“Simply put, Duke Energy is a strong supporter of solar and is committed to providing reliable, dependable, and cost-efficient clean energy to our customers,” spokeswoman Ana Gibbs wrote in an email.
FPL is the state’s largest producer of solar energy and promotes itself as leading the expansion of clean energy in Florida, vowing to build 30 million panels by 2030.
The company supports net metering, according to its website, which acknowledges FPL’s support for the legislation slashing credits for solar customers and says the current policies should be “modernized, not eliminated.”
“And yet there they are attacking private citizens with rooftop solar panels,” Bruce Dehnbostel said. “My interpretation is they are all for solar power as long as the money is going in their pockets.”