FPL offering 'green power' program

By Kristi E. Swartz · Palm Beach Post

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FPL Group launched Sunshine Energy, a voluntary renewable energy program allowing Florida residential customers to pay $9.75 monthly for 1,000 kilowatt hours of renewable energy credits. Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy praised the program as a positive step that demonstrates market demand for renewable energy and builds momentum for similar initiatives.

There's no doubt that there's positive public relations, but when they see that there's a group out there of consumers that will respond and there's a market out there, it builds momentum for other programs
Stephen A. Smith

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FPL offering 'green power' program

By Kristi E. Swartz, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 13, 2004

FPL Group Inc. started a renewable energy program Thursday that will allow its residential customers to become more environmentally friendly in exchange for a slightly higher bill.

"Customers can do their share to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, and it promotes cleaner energy generation," said Josh Bass, project manager for Juno Beach-based FPL's program, called Sunshine Energy.

FPL's customers can pay $9.75 a month on top of their regular FPL bill for 1,000 kilowatt hours of renewable energy. FPL (NYSE: FPL, $64.92) will use tradeable energy credits to buy renewable energy and transport it on a grid to customer's homes. Those signing up for Sunshine energy wouldn't necessarily be the ones getting the green power; rather, it would go to customers near renewable-energy generators, possibly in other states.

The company hopes to have between 1 and 7 percent of its 3.6 million residents use the program. It pledged to build 150 kilowatts of solar operations in Florida for every 10,000 customers that sign up.

Philip Fairey, interim director of the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, said a wider use of tradeable renewable energy credits could help the small solar-power industry survive in the competitive market.

"(The credits) are very cost-effective from an economical perspective," he said.

FPL is marketing its program through Austin, Texas-based Green Mountain Energy Co., the nation's largest retail provider of renewable energy.

"They will have a leg up by bringing in Green Mountain Energy," said Blair Swezey, principal policy adviser of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. "Most utilities try to go it alone."

Swezey said the program's price -- about 1 cent per kilowatt hour -- is better than most programs, which average 2.5 cents.

More than 300 utilities in 32 states offer green-power programs, some of which are mandated by state law, but FPL's program makes it the largest.

investor-owned utility in the country with a voluntary program, said John Savage, Green Mountain's senior vice president of marketing.

Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, Tenn., said that, although utilities should do more to produce and use renewable energy, FPL's program should be applauded as a step in the right direction.

"There's no doubt that there's positive public relations, but when they see that there's a group out there of consumers that will respond and there's a market out there, it builds momentum for other programs," Smith said.

"Clearly, people who are informed and understand that when they flip the light switch there are more consequences will respond."