Florida Power & Light Co. would see big boost in solar under rate settlement

Florida Power & Light Co. would see big boost in solar under rate settlement
BY BRUCE RITCHIE | 10/21/2021 04:20:66 PM EDT

Under the proposed settlement, FPL would build more than 50 new plants producing more than 4,800 megawatts of power. | VCG/VCG via Getty Images

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Power & Light Co. will more than double its solar power plants in the next four years under a proposed rate settlement agreement the state will consider next week.
FPL's agreement with the Office of Public Counsel and other groups still faces opposition. But an overlooked part of the deal is the huge boost in solar for FPL. The utility already owns more solar generating capacity than any other utility in the nation, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy research and consulting group.
FPL now has 42 solar plants producing more than 3,015 megawatts of power, utility spokesperson Chris McGrath said. Under the proposed settlement, FPL would build more than 50 new plants producing more than 4,800 megawatts of power.
"We've gone from having a solar footprint to having the largest in the country in the last several years," McGrath said. "That settlement agreement will accelerate that even more."
While other utilities — particularly those in California — provide more solar energy to customers than FPL, they buy from other energy companies and do not own the plants as FPL does. FPL's parent company, NextEra Energy, Inc., says it is the world's largest producer of energy from wind and solar that it also sells to other utilities.
Behind FPL, among utilities producing the most solar from its own plants are Dominion Energy and Vistra Corp., according to Wood Mackenzie.
Half of FPL's new plants will be part of its SolarTogether program in which customers pay to enroll, the company said. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which has battled FPL over energy policy in the past, supports the solar program and the settlement but some other groups, such as Florida Rising, do not.

"FPL is realizing they got a lot of customers that want solar and they like the design of the program whether they are municipal customers, businesses or residential," Bryan Jacob, solar program director with the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told POLITICO this week.
SACE was a party to the proposed settlement in August that reduced the nearly $2 billion rate hike request to $1.5 billion. The Public Service Commission held a hearing Sept. 20 and is scheduled to vote on the deal Oct. 26.
FPL isn't the only utility in Florida that is quickly growing its solar profile.
The PSC on Thursday approved a rate case settlement for Tampa Electric Co. that includes an additional 600 megawatts of solar. And Duke Energy Florida plans to build 10 solar plants totaling 750 megawatts of power in the next three years.
Both utilities and their solar fleets are dwarfed by the size of FPL, which says it is the nation's largest utility with 5.6 million residential and business customers.
James Fenton, director of the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida, says Florida utilities are installing more solar "because the right thing has become the cheapest thing" compared to other sources of power generation.
And while he said the increase in FPL's solar program is reason for celebration, more energy conservation is needed to reduce energy demand and more rooftop solar is needed to offset the distribution costs of power from utilities.
"We should celebrate — our utilities are doing the right thing," Fenton said. "We should be disappointed there are not more incentives to do energy efficiency in our homes and that we citizens are not making the profit — and the shareholders are."
But the proposed FPL settlement still faces opposition from Florida Rising, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, represented by the Earthjustice law firm, and from Floridians Against Increased Rates, Inc.
They say the utility doesn't need a rate increase and that the proposed deal allows it to reap excess profits.

Those opponents also say the agreement allows FPL to build out "needless" gas-fueled power plants along with expanding the electrical grid while leaving residential customers worse off than in the original rate hike request filed earlier this year.
The critics say the proposed rate settlement increases the continued "unlawful" subsidies for those customers in the solar subscription program, which the PSC approved in 2020.
"SolarTogether is still a bad idea, making customers pay for solar twice — once through base rates, and a second time in the form of payments to large commercial/industrial customers for whom the program is disproportionately reserved," Earthjustice's lawyers wrote in a post-hearing brief filed last week.
FPL argues in its post-hearing brief that the solar program will provide $648 million in savings to customers regardless of whether they are enrolled in the program.
Even the environmental groups that signed off on the proposed settlement — SACE, Vote Solar and the CLEO Institute — say they would like FPL to do more by pledging to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
"As Florida is ground zero for the climate crisis, we believe this is a critical step toward mitigating catastrophic rising seas and climate change, and one that we will continue to work towards," Katie Chiles Ottenweller, southeast director for Vote Solar, said in an August announcement supporting the proposed deal.
Jacob, of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told POLITICO his group can demonstrate how FPL and the other large utilities in the southeast can wean themselves off of coal, oil and gas. But he said that would require a big boost in rooftop and other distributed solar in addition to the plants like those FPL plans to continue building.
FPL's McGrath said the utility is working to eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions even if it has not set a goal like other some utilities in the southeast have.
"We are committed to being as clean as we can as fast as we can — without sacrificing reliability or affordability," McGrath said.