Florida lawmakers prepare for upcoming fight over rooftop solar

Florida lawmakers prepare for upcoming fight over rooftop solar

TALLAHASSEE — The Sunshine State is getting ready for a fight over energy from the sun.

Florida Legislators are tasked this upcoming session with deciding whether to back utility claims that customers soon will be paying more than $100 million a year to offset the energy savings of solar customers.

It's a claim that environmentalists call "laughable" and say the utility's numbers are "wildly" inflated.

But now, they must persuade state lawmakers that those numbers deserve further study rather than action. The environmentalists argue the utilities are really trying to protect their monopolistic business models against new technology and an expanding rooftop solar industry.

Florida Power & Light Co., however, says customers who don't use expensive rooftop solar panels are paying $30 million a year to provide services to solar users, and that the subsidy will only grow.

The utility is backing bills that would revise a state rule that now directs utilities to pay customers for the extra energy they produce from their solar panels.

Solar supporters say the bills would wipe out the rooftop solar industry in Florida. And they say the push behind the legislation is based on math that is fuzzy at best and fails to consider the benefits of solar.

Utilities told the Public Service Commission last year during a workshop that customers without solar will spend $719 million over a six-year period unless utilities are allowed to pay solar customers less.

Those claims have caught the attention of Rep. Lawrence McClure (R-Dover), who filed the legislation this week after having asked the Public Service Commission last year to investigate the issue.

"I'd like to strike the balance somewhere between not hurting the rooftop solar industry and [not] having a conversation about hundreds of millions of dollars in our relatively near future," McClure told POLITICO.

Environmental groups including Vote Solar and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy heard similar numbers during a 2020 Public Service Commission workshop on rooftop solar. But they haven't done their own analysis to counter the utilities' arguments.

"Honestly it's such a laughable and ridiculous number," said Katie Chiles Ottenweller, regional director with Vote Solar. "It was not even worth us trying to rebut it."

Former PSC Chair Terry Deason, now a consultant and registered Florida Power & Light Co. lobbyist, told the commission last year that falling costs were causing more utility customers to buy rooftop solar at the expense of those without solar.

The cost shift, Deason said at a workshop, would increase from $39 million per year in 2019 to $179 million per year in 2025, or $700 million over six years.

"I'm still shocked the number is that high," PSC Chair Gary Clark told Deason in response at the workshop. "I just want to clarify that."

Utility supporters didn't directly counter the $719 million estimate at the workshop and haven't had to since. Until now — with the filing of the legislation by McClure and Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming Island) who is chair of the Senate Committee on Community Affairs.

Vote Solar and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy say Florida Power & Light Co. has failed to justify its math or factor in the benefits of solar, such as avoiding the need for new power plants and transmission lines to serve homes on solar.

Photovoltaic panels on homes also avoid carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, which the utilities use to justify their own solar power plants they are rapidly building across the state.

"The majority of studies that have been done show that net metered solar has overall net benefits (to the utility system along with society at large)," Bryan Jacob of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy wrote in an email to POLITICO.

In response to criticism of the estimated "subsidy," FPL spokesperson Chris McGrath told POLITICO on Thursday said the methodology was laid in detail at the 2020 PSC workshop.

Florida Power & Light Co. last year estimated that the average solar customer would pay $178 per month for electricity, including $132 for "fixed costs" such as transmission lines. But the monthly bill is reduced to $83 per month after utilities pay for solar at the higher "retail" rate as required under a 2008 state law.

The utility says that means all customers were required to pay the $68 per month — or $13 million in 2019 — for each of the 16,791 solar customers that year. And with a 70 percent annual growth in rooftop solar, that "subsidy" was expected to top $42 million by 2024 just for Florida Power & Light Co.

McGrath also said the utility supports solar and isn't opposed to "net metering," which is the system of paying customers for the energy they produce.

"All forms of solar play a role in a zero-carbon future," McGrath said. "However, that shouldn't mean all customers are forced to pay higher electric bills to subsidize private solar investments for the very few who, under the current rule, are not paying their fair share of the costs needed to maintain and operate the grid."

Justin Vandenbroeck, board president of Florida Solar Energy Industries Association, says reducing the utilities' payments will kill the industry because banks will quit loaning money to customers who want to install solar.

The group Conservatives for Clean Energy says 40,500 jobs are supported by the rooftop solar industry, creating an $18.3 billion annual economic impact.

Last year as the Public Service Commission was holding the workshop on the issue, more than 16,000 people sent emails urging commissioners not to take action that would affect rooftop solar.

Then-Commissioner Julie Brown said utilities should be doing more to connect solar customers than worrying about their numbers, which had just topped 20,000 for Florida Power & Light Co. in 2020.

"It is still very modest," Brown said. "FPL has 5 million customers. It is still a modest number."

McClure told POLITICO this week it was time for the Legislature to take up the issue after the Public Service Commission failed to take action.

"Nobody is saying you can't put rooftop solar on if you want — and have the resources," he said. "What I want to have the conversation about is if you don't have the resources, is it equitable to have a rate increase as a function of that?"

Ottenweller said she is going to tell the Legislature to direct the Public Service Commission to study the costs of servicing solar customers specifically and the benefits of renewable energy rather than ordering the commission to reduce payments.

"This is about technology that is allowing customers to lower their electric bills," she said. "I think once people understand that, it becomes clear — OK this is not about some alleged cost shift."