As Floridians celebrate Earth Day, state leaders and renewable power producers pushed for legislation to promote clean energy.

Florida CFO Alex Sink said today that she has asked legislators to approve funding for the Florida Solar Rebate Program. Measures to extend the program, which expires in June, are stuck in committees with just over a week left for the state’s legislative session.

Justin Hoysradt, of Abundant Energy, a Jupiter-based solar installer, also called for extending the program as his company prepares to turn on what may be the largest, privately owned, non-utility solar array in South Florida. The kick off will be held today at Sawgrass Business Park in Stuart, which now has more than 500 solar panels on its buildings that will produce 150 kilowatts of power. (See a photo provided by the company below.) A third of the nearly $900,000 cost of the project will come from federal stimulus funds and the developers have applied for a Florida solar rebate.

As for other key measures to increase the state’s renewable energy production, the House is scheduled to debate HB 7229 on Friday. The Senate bills, SB 992 and SB 1186, are not ready to be debated yet.

Proponents of the measures say they can jumpstart Florida’s alternative energy industry and reduce the state’s dependence on fuel and fluctuations of fuel costs. Some environmentalists say the legislation doesn’t go far enough in requiring targets for renewable energy production in the coming years.

The bills allow utilities to pass to customers the costs of plants that produce roughly 700 megwatts of renewable energy in the next few years without full regulatory scrutiny. Provisions in the first two bills would allow other renewable energy producers to sell their electricity to utilities at 80 percent of the price of the utility’s electric rates and require utilities to share 75 percent of the money it makes from renewable energy credits with its customers. A provision in the third would allow utilities to earn an extra profit margin on clean energy projects.

Some environmental groups say the state should focus on saving energy as much as creating more clean power.

Florida is already on its way to being the second largest solar energy producer in the country. By year-end, Florida Power & Light will open the final of three solar plants built under a 2008 law that streamlined cost recovery for the projects.

FPL said today that its power generators produced 845 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour of electricity — 35 percent less than the industry average of 1,297 pounds.

Most recently (2009) the world was captivated by colors and 3 dimensional images in James Cameron’s AVATAR. Out on BlueRay on Earthday 2010 the movie builds an emotional love story around the human race invading and destroying a foreign planet Pandora and it’s people in search for the energy generating super coal Unobtainium. In our world Billions of tons of coal are mined from the Earth’s mountains in a very similar fashion to provide electricity to all of us each day.

In “The American President” Michael Douglas plays Andrew Sheppard a widowed President of the United States of America who falls in love with an environmental lobbyist. The movie is mostly about the romantic comedy of the President and his girlfriend however the climate message that underlies is that President Sheppard has promised his girlfriend he will introduce a climate bill to reduce carbon emissions in the United States by 20% by 2012 if she can generate the support of the house. What makes this even more interesting is this movie was released in 1995, years before Al Gore “made up” global warming.

When two soul mates are separated by two years in time and all that can bring them together is letters in a mail box that they can magically write to each other a global warming reference appears in the end when Sandra Bullock realizes how she can finally meet her true love Keanu Reeves in “The Lake House”.  Released in 2006.

Keanu Reeves is no stranger to movies that remind us that this planet is not ours and we should take care of it, especially when he plays the messenger of bad news in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” (2004) Believe it or not this move was actually a remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth. Keanu is also pretty good in the critically acclaimed hit, “Pointe Break”.

Al Gore’s warning is played out in more than charts in the action packed move “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004) when climatologist Dr. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is drilling ice cores in Antarctica when a piece of the Antarctic Ice Shelf the size of Rhode Island breaks off which triggers a global climate change storm resulting in most of North America covered in ice.

Putting politics aside if you have never seen and Inconvenient Truth it is time to sit down and watch it with your family. I will be picking up a fresh copy of Avatar, on BluRay!

March 04, 2010|By Julie Patel, Sun Sentinel

The Sunshine State is poised to be the second largest solar energy producer in the country, thanks to three large solar plants Florida Power & Light will complete this year.

FPL kicked off operations at a solar plant in DeSoto County in October with great fanfare, including an appearance by President Barack Obama. Just two years earlier, former President Bill Clinton helped the company unveil its plans to build large solar plants.

When finished, the DeSoto plant and two others in Martin and Brevard counties to be completed this year will generate 110 megawatts of energy — enough to power 35,000 homes and prevent the emission of an estimated 575,000 tons of greenhouse gases over the 30-year life of the facilities.

Solar energy proponents say the benefits of switching from polluting fossil fuels to renewable sources are substantial – creating jobs, providing clean power sources and diversifying Florida’s power supply. But some consumer advocates and utility critics are raising concerns about the costs of solar energy – now many times higher than for other sources – and proposals to allow utilities to pass on the costs of such projects without traditional state regulatory oversight.

“We have got to look at all energy solutions,” said Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, who is in line to be the next Senate president. “The ratepayers need to know exactly what the costs would be…In a very weak economy, asking consumers to pay three or four times more may be untenable.”

FPL’s solar plants were built under a provision in a 2008 law that allowed utilities to pass the costs of solar or wind projects generating up to 110 megawatts of energy without the normal regulatory review. FPL officials have said that kind of a provision is needed for it move forward with other solar projects, including a $300 million 75-megawatt solar plant as part of a sustainable city planned on Babcock Ranch in Charlotte County.

Several Florida lawmakers are proposing doing just that. They have filed a half-dozen renewable energy and energy efficiency bills, including one that have would allow utilities to pass to customers the costs of solar plants generating up to 700 megawatts of energy in the next few years.

The House version of the bill, proposed by Rep. Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers, would allow utilities to earn a profit on shareholders’ investment for the plants that is a half-percent more than the high-end range approved by regulators. That would allow an 11.5 percent profit for FPL.

FPL officials said they’re not taking formal positions on bills at this point but legislators consulted with utility executives, including FPL Vice President and Chief Development Officer Eric Silagy, on the measures. “As the state’s largest solar energy producer, we support legislation that encourages further investment in the expansion of renewable energy production and solar technologies in Florida,” FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said.

Like the provision in the 2008 law, the legislation this year does not limit the cost to customers and does not require the utility to explore options that might produce more renewable energy at a cheaper cost. FPL’s three solar projects cost $659 million – adding up to about 25 cents per month for a typical customer for 25 years – but the plants and another project that has been shelved would only bump up the utility’s renewable energy capacity from about 1.4 percent in 2007 to about 1.9 percent.

A study by Navigant Consulting commissioned by the Public Service Commission estimated that building a large ground-mounted solar panel plant in 2009 would cost about $7,100 per kilowatt of energy capacity but the price is projected to drop to $4,300 by 2020. The study said the price of other renewable energy options is cheaper for now and is expected not to change much by 2020. For instance, Navigant estimates solid biomass plants cost $4,000 per kilowatt; wind farms cost $2,470; and solar water heating costs $1,700.

Critics say the bill would allow utilities who use the provision to essentially boost rates and profit margins after the PSC all but rejected large base rate hikes for FPL and Progress Energy this year. It would strip the PSC of one of its core functions: determining whether new plants and additional energy is actually needed.

Michael Dobson, president of Florida Energy Producers – a group of about 40 renewable energy producers, project developers and economic development groups – said the Williams bill is appealing to his group and lawmakers because job creation is critical. But he said it would “allow for a unique return on investment that I’m not sure is the best thing for consumers.”

“Let’s just call it what it is: it’s a utility bill,” he said. “It does encourage more renewable energy but the bad thing is, it still maintains the status quo in that it passes additional costs to consumers.”

Dobson told the House utilities committee last week that utilities and independent renewable energy producers should be allowed “to fight it out” for business instead of any group receiving advantages.

But Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, who proposed the Senate’s version of the bill said it would boost the state’s economy and jumpstart its renewable energy industry. “We’ve got to find ways to encourage renewable energy [by] either subsidizing them or coming up with a financing program that will allow people to put renewable energy products in their house,” he said.

Dobson’s group and other environmental and renewable energy groups support another approach they say would do the same thing: a measure proposed by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, requiring 20 percent of the state’s energy production to be from renewable resources by 2022.

A bill proposed by Bennett and Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, could encourage home and business owners to install solar panels and solar water heaters to their homes through rebates funded by a 25 cent monthly fee for utility customers.

Justin Hoysradt, a vice president of Jupiter-based Abudant Energy, which installs solar systems, said small businesses like his would stand to benefit. He said installing solar systems on location doesn’t require electricity to travel through hundreds of miles of power lines – as it does when utilities build large renewable energy plants.

Julie Patel can be reached at and jpatel@sunsentinel.com.

The PSC has to hear out the requests of Nweze and most likely conduct an additional study to prove their decision is not going to affect the lower income working class Floridians as harshly as Ms. Nweze condemns. Her letter attacks solar panels, stating that only the rich and affluent can afford them and “he bottom line is simple. Forcing low- and middle-income Floridians to subsidize energy-efficiency upgrades for those who can afford them is immoral and wrong.”

To be clear to the public, the program Nweze is attacking, estimates at this time, an 18cent per month, per meter charge or rate impact measure to fund the program. This is more that 20X less than storm clean up.

However, in order to humor, Ms. Nweze’s rant and fight for the poor who in her words, “are not the source of the problem because they do not own energy hogging pool pumps, plasma tv’s and don’t even have air conditioning”, let’s just see how much money the PSC is robbing from the poor so the rich can live so lavishly.

Just on the Florida Power and Light grid alone the program would generate approximately $13.8 Million annually to help subsidize energy efficiency upgrades. Let’s also assume 10% of that money must go to administration and marketing to make people aware of the program and ensure money is paid out timely and fairly. That would leave around $12.4 Million available annually for the investment.

Let’s assume that 25% of that money is used to subsidize the cost of solar water heaters with a $500 rebate. Resulting in just over 6,000 new solar water heating systems installed to replace old, high energy using, electric hot water heaters.

Now if Ms. Nweze looked deeper into this pool of money, passed her self serving reflection, she would promote and encourage this program to her under paid constituents which she represents. She would also recommend they take advantage of the State low cost loan program for solar water heating. By doing so, those she is looking to protect could actually benefit from  a 5-10% rise in their income by not having to pay for electric water heating. Be it as it may, she is talking about people who make a mere $10k on paper, but being able to keep an extra $1000 per year might mean a lot to that person, especially since it means a lot to MOST people…

As for the remaining 75% of the money not used for marking, administration or solar water heaters, this money could be used for an additional 930 solar photovoltaic generating systems for the “rich people”. Rich people like the postal worker, boat engine mechanic, school administrator, retired van line sales person, aerospace engineer, body shop technician and high school sports coach we just installed solar energy systems for.

All in all, the program would offset approximately 20MW of dirty power consumed each year for a mere 18cents per meter per month. If the power company could build power plants in mini-doses, according to Moody’s Investor Services, the cost would range around $6000 per kilowatt. (See article).

In other words, here is a chart which severely disproves Nweze’s claim that building new generation will cost the poor 1/3rd less than energy efficiency. But perhaps, what she means is that if new plants are built the PSC should charge higher income earners more…

It is letters like Nweze’s, while her intent is good, her information and accuracy to clearly represent her cause will result in more tax dollars spent by all income classes to give the public service commission more time to research what they already know is false. Just the simple task of drafting more proof will cost money. Please take 10 minutes of your time to support the PSC decision to create a rebate program for energy efficiency upgrades to your home, such as solar water heaters, photovoltaic’s, high efficiency air conditioners and compact florescent light bulbs. (Contact the PSC Here)