Is It Illegal To Use Solar Panels In Florida

The biggest power company in the United states of america is pushing policy changes that would hamstring rooftop solar ability in Florida, delivering legislation for a land lawmaker to introduce, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald and Floodlight.

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Florida Ability & Light (FPL), whose piece of work with night money political committees helped secure Republican control of the state Senate, is lobbying to hollow out internet metering, a policy that lets Florida homeowners and businesses start the costs of installing solar panels past selling power back to the visitor.

Internal emails obtained from the Florida Senate show that an FPL lobbyist, John Holley, sent the text of the bill to land senator Jennifer Bradley's staff on 18 October. FPL's parent visitor contributed $10,000 to Bradely's political committee on 20 October. A calendar month after, Bradley filed a bill that was nearly identical to the i FPL gave her. Another lawmaker introduced the aforementioned mensurate in the House.

Bradley said the donation was unrelated to the bill.

"Any decision I make to file legislation is based entirely on whether it's in the all-time interest of our land and my district," she said. "This word about fairness in metering is happening in legislatures across the country and it's time for it to happen in Florida."

FPL's parent visitor, NextEra, said its political committee did not make its contribution to Bradley's entrada "with an expectation of favor".

An FPL spokesman, Chris McGrath, said the company does not oppose net metering just that the law should be revised then rooftop solar users are not subsidized by other customers who continue to buy electricity and pay to maintain the ability grid. FPL argues that rooftop solar could cost Florida utilities about $700m between 2019 and 2025, according to documents submitted to country regulators.

"We simply believe rooftop solar customers should pay the total cost of this investment," McGrath said.

The solar industry is fiercely opposing the effort. Katie Chiles Ottenweller, south-east director for Vote Solar, said she was wary, given FPL's clout in the legislature.

"Companies do not laissez passer legislation," she said. "Legislators pass legislation. I'm hopeful this is a conversation-starter but at the aforementioned time information technology's really hard to have a conversation when you have a gun to your head. The beak as information technology is written will decimate this industry."

Only nigh 90,000 Florida electricity customers, well-nigh one%, sell excess energy back to the grid. Just the system has driven significant rooftop solar expansion. The proposed legislation could seriously curtail that growth.

Nationwide, power companies are feeling pressured by the rise of distributed renewable free energy. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. Electricity companies like FPL brand money off of the things they build: mainly big power plants and lines that bring that energy to customers. They don't brand money off of solar ability generated from rooftops.

The Florida pecker is just one front in a decade-long battle confronting the policy. FPL backed a failed ballot amendment in 2016 that would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. FPL has too invested millions in swaying elections in favor of Republicans.

According to reporting past the Orlando Picket, FPL executives have been tied to a series of "night money" groups with untraceable donors. One group, Grow United, was backside a candidate who had no political background simply the same terminal name as the incumbent Democrat. The candidate diverted votes and helped Republicans maintain a majority in the state Senate. A Florida state attorney is investigating. In response to questions for this story, FPL denied whatever wrongdoing related to political campaigns.

'Significant costs'

Bradley, the bill sponsor, is a start-term senator but is shut to Senate leadership. She is married to former state senator Rob Bradley, an influential politician who was head of the budget committee. Bradley said the neb language emerged after a meeting with Holley and other members of the utility industry.

"I looked at the linguistic communication," she said. "It was based on our discussion and it was one that I could support every bit a starting bespeak."

Emails show Bradley's staff followed upwards with FPL after that word. On 8 October this year, legislative aide Katie Heffley emailed Holley under the subject line "Net Metering Neb".

"Good afternoon, Hope you're doing well," Heffley wrote. "I merely wanted to bank check in and see if you lot had any follow upward information or language in regards to the cyberspace metering bill yous discussed with Senator Bradley."

Eight minutes later, Holley replied: "I do. Tin I bring it to you all subsequently today?"

Heffley suggested he could "ship it via email today or we will exist at the Capitol next week".

Holley opted instead to drop off a re-create in person. Ten days afterward, Heffley emailed him again.

"I just desire to reach out and run into if I could get an electronic copy of the net metering bill so I tin put information technology into drafting," she said.

Emails obtained in a public records request show FPL drafted a bill to end net metering so that a Florida state lawmaker could introduce the legislation. — Emails obtained in a public records request show FPL drafted a bill to stop net metering so that a Florida state lawmaker could introduce the legislation. Photograph: Miami Herald, Floodlight, Energy & Policy Institute

Two days later that, on 20 October, NextEra Energy gave $10,000 to Bradley's political committee, Women Edifice the Future, according to campaign records.

The electronic mail records were provided to the Herald and Floodlight by the Free energy & Policy Institute, a watchdog that works to counter misinformation well-nigh renewable energy.

Under the pecker, customers whose solar panels evangelize energy back to the grid would exist compensated less, at wholesale rather than retail rates. Utilities could too charge rooftop solar customers more by adding in facility charges, grid access fees and minimum monthly payments. Customers already using rooftop solar power earlier 2023 would be grandfathered in and go on previous compensation rates for 10 years.

Bradley said she was open up to discussing alternative models, including a system in use in the Carolinas to pay rooftop solar customers for sending ability to the grid when it is most in need.

In an interview, Lawrence McClure, the House sponsor of the beak, said it was "not broiled".

"[Information technology's] very early on in this bill's ride," he said. "I think it has a real risk to settle out in a way that well-nigh parties are not upset."

McClure noted that the net metering police is due for a discussion because it has not been updated in 13 years.

"I feel rooftop solar is beneficial to the surround, and Floridians," he said. "I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, only I too don't want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida."

McClure did not receive campaign donations from FPL or its parent company in the menstruum the bill was nether discussion. Simply his entrada did get a $ten,000 donation from a related political committee on four November. It came from Vocalisation of Florida Concern, which is linked to an manufacture grouping, Associated Industries of Florida. The group's consultants also worked on the nighttime money campaigns in the state senate, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

McClure said the contribution "had absolutely cypher to do with the sponsorship of the bill".

"I don't think there's ever been any contribution that motivated me to sponsor a beak," he said.

An Associated Industries of Florida consultant, Sarah Bascom, said the group "does not discuss specific political giving".

"However, if you are implying that contributions given are tied to specific legislation being filed or non filed, the answer is an emphatic no," she said.

'Forced to subsidize'

Florida is one of 47 states to allow households and businesses that produce ability to sell it back to the grid at a set rate. All the same, utilities are increasingly concerned about how the growth of distributed solar energy affects their lesser line. In California, regulators plan to increment fees for rooftop solar customers. Even some ecology advocates say the modify is fair and necessary because of the fast rate of rooftop solar development in that state.

In Florida, rooftop solar expanded slowly until 2018, when regulators immune electricity customers to lease solar systems with little or no upfront costs. That conclusion catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. It grew by 57% in 2020, according to the US Free energy Information Administration.

FPL says its 24,000 net-metering customers cost the company $30m in 2020, or virtually $1,250 per customer. Utility experts have testified to Florida regulators that rooftop solar in the country could grow at 39% a year until 2025 if the current net-metering system is left in place. Such growth has the utilities and legislators worried.

"As a result of the current system, my constituents are being forced to subsidize the decisions of neighbors in other counties who are in a position to be able to put these expensive systems on their homes," Jennifer Bradley said.

The solar industry frequently counters that rooftop solar in nigh states has non grown enough to substantially increase costs for other customers.

Florida has the second-largest solar workforce in the Us, co-ordinate to the Solar Energy Industries Association. It ranks third among states for installed solar capacity, although much of that is large-scale and utility endemic.

Justin Vandenbroeck, president of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association who also owns an Orlando-based solar installation company, said if the beak passes it could "ship Florida back to 2013".