Florida Utilities Trying to Buy the Sun - please take action!

Florida Utilities Trying to Buy the Sun ...with a little help from the State House

Investor-owned utilities in Florida must have been extra nice to the legislature of late, because that august body is happily processing a bill that would give the utilities almost total control over deployment of solar power in the Sunshine State, cutting out competition and diluting the value of customer-owned Solar to near zero.

Can you make a noise about this?

The bill, SPB7082, allows FP&L and other large utilities in Florida to control all aspects of renewable energy in the state, effectively deciding what (if anything) gets built. It denies independent renewable energy developers access to the grid, a measure that will cause mass unemployment in a sector in which Florida should be leading the nation.

The bill will also, if passed, massively reduce the value of net metering in Florida. No longer will owners of solar installations be able to sell the energy they produce to the grid for full retail value; SPB7082 will allow the utilities to pay much less for this power. And the third strike will come when these utilities pass on rate increases related to renewable energy to you, the customer, without needing to get Public Service Commission approval.

Three strikes and you're out.

But isn't there an umpire around to ensure fair play? Not if SBP passes. Because then the Florida Energy Office and Climate Change Commission gets eliminated and replaced by a self-regulating government entity with little requirement for public disclosure. And since there is nothing in the bill to promote a renewable energy standard, the utilities will have no statutory need to produce a single watt of clean energy.

This is an unimaginably bad bill. It destroys competition and puts our state's renewable energy development squarely in the hands of those who want nothing to do with renewables. It's a munificent gift to investor-owned utilities from friends in the State House--not your friends, since you're paying for the gift--but definitely theirs.

Can you send a message to your state representatives and senators, telling them why you think this bill stinks as much as the smokestack of a coal-burning power plant?

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