[Sunshine State] Solar Initiative Circling the Drain

Floridians for Solar Choice, an ad hoc group seeking a carve-out for the already heavily subsidized solar industry in Florida, appears to be running out of sunshine (it wouldn't do to say gas here) in its constitutional amendment petition drive.

The group has gathered 271,000 certified signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the November 2016 state ballot that would oblige the state to promote solar power over other forms of electrical power generation and would allow citizens to generate solar power through a solar power company. This generation and sales would not be regulated in any way by the state's Public Service Commission, which regulates electric utilities. And the power would be sold not by individuals but by solar power companies. The amendment is about as naked a push for a single industry's self-interest as one is likely to encounter......

The initiative has been largely financed by enviro-groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and various Tom Steyer outfits. The group has claimed support from various conservative groups such as tea-party organizations, but almost all of these groups have opted out after considering the amendment. Solar Choice has claimed its amendment simply aims to put solar on the free market with other forms of power. The facts show otherwise. Solar is heavily subsidized at just about every government level and, without this huge government thumb on the scale, would last on the free market about as long as an ice cream cone would last outside in Phoenix in July......

Like here in Virginia, Florida already has net metering: https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/net-metering.html That means the extra power from a home solar installation spins the meter backwards and results in credits that are typically banked and spent in winter or at night or cloudy periods here that consumer needs power. It is important to note that this is a huge subsidy paid for by other ratepayers. It means instead of those ratepayers purchasing reliable wholesale power through their grid provider at maybe 4 cents a kWh, they are paying full retail price from home solar providers, maybe 12 cents but still paying for the cost of plants generating the cheap reliable power since those are needed during times when solar produces nothing.

The petition http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/initiatives/fulltext/pdf/64491-1.pdf obviously goes further. The solar providers want to sell their power to neighboring (contiguous) properties without any intervention or interference by any utility or regulation of any sort. At the same time any customers of such power would have the absolute right to purchase power from the grid whenever they need it:

(3) An electric utility shall not be relieved of its obligation under law to furnish service to any customer within its service territory on the basis that such customer also purchases electricity from a local solar electricity supplier

That is the most important part of the amendment, it is the "eat the cake too" part. Without that provision the rest of us would say, fine, string whatever wires you want, however you want and leave the rest of us alone. But instead those customers want the reliable and inexpensive power from the grid whenever they need it.

I suspect this is being driven by large business customers that are abutted by property owners who are able to put up cheap and dirty solar farms and who obviously expect those farms to be unreliable. Those customers can simply and automatically flip back to the grid when they need to which can create instability and sudden and expensive peak power demands. For example when a front moves in with clouds but the temperatures are still high. The rest of the ratepayers pay for that.

There is persistent myth propagated by greenies especially the dumber ones in the media that the power companies are impeding alternatives especially solar to protect their ability to generate expensive monopoly power. Nothing could be further from the truth. But this initiative is driven by that myth. I'm sure a libertarian type or two got sucked in by it, and perhaps still are. But that just means they are not knowledgeable.

power companies are impeding alternatives especially solar to protect their ability to generate expensive monopoly power.

The only reason monopoly power is expensive would be EPA rules, and rapid environmentalist who are hell bent on getting rid of what God gave us to use for our benefit.

Sun worshippers instead of what is right here on earth. Do I need to repeat the words, coal, gas, oil, hydro, nuclear, and anything else in abundance that is cheap, clean, renewable and God created and endorsed.

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