Why aren’t we capitalizing on our most noteworthy resource, the sun? Here’s one more report from our environmental feature in the March/April issue.
For the Sunshine State, we sure are terrible about using solar power. Consider this: less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the state’s power comes from solar. If that’s not enough to shame you, even New Jersey produces more.
The simple reason for this discrepancy is that the state’s main power companies have lobbied hard to keep wind and solar from expanding, says George Cavros, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who oversees the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s work in Florida. The state’s two largest, Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy, have been successful in beating down even simple policy changes that are standard elsewhere, Cavros says.
The power companies fear an expansion into solar and wind for the obvious reason: a decrease in demand for their product. But there are also more complicated concerns that have borne true elsewhere, like in Europe. If Floridians installed solar in mass numbers, it would lead to a dramatic decrease in the need for power plants. When the sun didn’t shine for a rainy day, however, it would mean the plants would suddenly need to crank back up to full production, leaving power companies forced to keep costly plants at the ready at all times.
Out of these fears, the power companies have lobbied lawmakers to make clean energy less accessible than elsewhere. Consider the incentives many states offer to homeowners who install solar panels in the form of tax breaks that repay them for a portion of the costs. Not in Florida.
Or there’s the rule that allows solar power companies to install free solar systems on roofs in other states and then sell the power to the homeowner. Typically the cost is less than half of what consumers would pay to a power company. It’s illegal here but not elsewhere.
“It’s not that these other places are sunnier than Florida. They’re not,” Cavros says. “It just comes down to policy.”
This has all cost Florida jobs, according to Environmental Entrepreneurs, a trade group representing solar installers. Only 11,000 Floridians have jobs in the solar industry, fewer than even Massachusetts. That single fact alone might help lead to change. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has talked jobs over almost any other concern, and a policy that’s costing more of them might lead to the state to finally allow for solar expansion.
On the bright side, there’s also this: only two more states have more solar potential than Florida. So solar power is there; we’re just waiting for policy change.
