FPL green energy program under questioning by PSC, asks to be shielded from the public

There was a disturbing article about the PSC audit of the FPL Sunshine Energy Program published in the Miami Herald on June 6th: State audit of FPL 'green' program remains secret

The crux: FPL may not be all that forthright about how it's spending the funds that their customers are forking over to buy green tags and install new solar in Florida.

Word is that they're coming with a "revised" program to the PSC in the coming months. Possibly as early as July.

FPL is a private monopoly. The only way they exist is through the State legal framework giving them monopoly status. They shouldn't be able to shield audits of their activity from the public.

My concern is twofold - 1) they may be buying green tags worth significantly less than they charge for the "service" of buying them from green energy producers and/or 2) they've been gaming the system by including new solar projects that are actually funded through other sources like state grant programs and counting that toward their promised new solar project capacity.

Neither worry is founded in anything more than guesswork, but since they refuse to release the audit to the public, all we can do is speculate.

FPL making excuses instead of clean energy?

Re: “Solar Still a Tough Sell” by John Dorshner

See original story in the Miami Herald (if you must)

Solar is getting to be less of a “tough sell” by the day. FPL just recently announced that they were going to ask the Public Service Commission (PSC) for a 16% rate hike to offset the spike in fuel costs. Add to that, the Utility’s plan to charge ratepayers 6% now for a nuclear power plant only in the early planning stages and we have all the more reason to look to renewable energy options like solar.

Solar may be a “tough sell” for big energy companies because most solar energy technologies do not fit well within their standard model of large centralized power plants. FPL Energy, sister company to the utility, has managed to make large-scale solar work in the projects they own in the Southwest United States, but the utility’s plans for Florida were new – at least for our State where no concentrating solar power facilities exist.

Where solar energy does work well, and is making increasing economic as well as environmental sense, is on individual homes and businesses. Homeowners can now power a sizable portion of their home energy needs through on-site power, and through State mandated agreements, the local energy utility must provide connection to the power grid. Because of recent rules adopted by the PSC, all energy utilities must now compensate small “green energy” systems dollar for dollar for excess power supplied to the grid as well.

As for cost, the solar industry has received pocket change compared to oil and gas and nuclear power’s share of Federal Research and Development funds. Yet the industry has made amazing advancements with dramatic improvements in efficiency and functionality in recent years. By way of comparison, the two additional nuclear reactors proposed for Turkey point have been reported to cost $16 billion, assuming no unforeseen cost overruns. These proposed reactors are expected to produce 2200 megawatts of power. That’s a construction cost of more than $7 per watt. Solar for your home costs about $8 per watt to install and the State will reimburse you $4 of that.

Finally, the solar energy industry is one of the fastest growing energy sectors in the Country, with double digit growth in production and job creation. According to the US Department of Energy, the industry posted a 26% annual increase in jobs for 2006, and is expected to continue this rapid growth to feed the world-wide demand for solar energy products. International companies from Germany and China are now looking to establish manufacturing facilities in the US, bringing more clean energy jobs here. Florida should wholeheartedly embrace solar energy and become a world leader in the development and use of clean, sun power. It may not be a good fit for FPL, but it will work great for the rest of us.