So you’re a Florida Power & Light customer looking to switch to clean energy….
You’ve read the steps, you’re excited to get started on your clean energy transition, and you’re a customer of Florida Power & Light (a.k.a. FPL). This blog post is for you! (If you’ve somehow gotten here before the rest of the website, go back to the beginning, otherwise the discussion below will be pretty confusing.)
Now that you’re ready to get going, I have to tell you this one is a good news/bad news sort of situation.
The bad news first: as you may be well aware, FPL is a big monopoly utility. About the biggest in the U.S. with respect to their residential customer base. For a combination of reasons, that means they dominate the field when it comes to potential clean energy programs.
But as a result, I do have some good news: your version of the steps should be relatively straightforward. Check a few options, do some internet searches and make a few phone calls, and you can hopefully figure out your clean energy plan fairly quickly. Price that out (the Step-by-Step Worksheets may help), allocate your climate budget, and you’ll be well on your way to a “climate smart” home. For now, here are a few pointers to get you started:
Step Zero
Let’s start with the fun stuff: the energy audit. Florida Power & Light does currently have a Home Energy Survey program offering free in-person, virtual, or telephonic analyses of your home energy use, as well as an “Energy Manager” online tool that can help you identify potential energy-saving opportunities. Free is good, it’s true. Still, you may not be surprised to hear me suggest that if you can afford a true, in-depth audit with a blower door test, that’s still the best way to identify the targeted home improvements that are most likely to save energy and/or make your home more comfortable. Basically, it’s like a doctor actually doing an x-ray to see if you’ve broken a bone instead of just poking at you from the outside — better results and less painful all around. Fortunately, the Nate the House Whisperer HVAC 2.0 network has some coverage in Florida Power & Light territory, and if none of those folks can help you they can probably offer some suggestions of who else to call. Hopefully whoever you land on can also help guide you through Step Two if you’re switching to an electric heat pump — so you’ve killed two birds with one stone.
Once you do have some expert recommendations for ways to make your home more efficient, FPL offers programs providing rebates or other incentives for new ceiling insulation, air conditioning, outdoor lighting, and home construction (in conjunction with your builder). These days Florida is pretty tough when it comes to approving energy efficiency programs (many would say overly so), which means the limited incentives that do get the green light tend to be targeted toward measures that are very effective in producing energy savings above-and-beyond what you’d get in the marketplace. In other words, even if the up-front rebates in the FPL programs are not huge, the fact that they exist at all is an indicator that, for many people, these measures are likely to provide robust energy savings in the long term.
(Important note: I linked to the page with all the available conservation programs in case those change over time, but the “FPL Home” option is not one of the pre-vetted efficiency programs that has been through any analysis to show their programs save you energy or money. That’s actually a separate, unregulated business run by FPL that they’ve apparently thrown in there to give themselves an advertising boost.)
What about natural gas? As you know from Step Two, if you’re in the market for new appliances or a new home I’m going to encourage you to switch to electric, especially for home heating — and as you’ll see in Step Three below, that could actually save you some money on your FPL bill. That said, if you’re going to stick with natural gas you should certainly try to use less, so go ahead and check for efficiency programs. Many of you will get service from Florida City Gas, which does offer some efficient appliance rebates, and other utilities may have programs of their own.
Okay, you’ve identified some investments to make your home more efficient and hopefully lower your utility bills along the way. Next up is the actual clean energy part of the equation….
Step One
Let’s set the baseline here. FPL’s most recent annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that about 28% of its 2021 generation supply was from carbon-free resources, with 22% from nuclear, 6% from solar, and the remaining 72% primarily from natural gas with a small slice of “other” (coal or oil?). FPL plans to build additional solar in the next few years, but carbon-free resources are still likely to be less than a third of its total. Bottom line: there’s certainly room for FPL customers to make changes to lower the climate impact of your electricity supply.
What options are there for you to do that? As I said before — not that complicated. FPL has two programs to let you buy solar from them, along with a “net metering” rate for home solar:
FPL SolarTogether: Wait, you say, this link says they’re fully subscribed? Take heart — as you can see if you check out their FAQs, you can get on the waitlist now, and more spots will be opening up in January 2023. That’s because this program basically lets you invest in a small piece of big solar projects owned by FPL (under specific terms and conditions) and get proportional credits based on the value of the electricity generated from those projects. FPL will have some new projects starting up as of 2023, allowing the program to grow, with potentially even more space down the road as FPL expands its solar portfolio. Depending on your situation and how the terms and conditions change over time, the SolarTogether program offers the possibility that you’ll end up turning a profit as you “pay off” your share of the projects and they continue to produce revenue that’s credited back to you. Note that the renewable energy certificates for your share of the solar project will be retired in your name, which means you can legally claim you’re using clean energy. (I’m not offering legal advice, though!)
FPL SolarNow: This is an FPL version of “community” solar (scare quotes intentional), where you can sign up to pay an extra $9 per month toward the construction and/or maintenance of small solar projects distributed across local community sites (a park, zoo, museum, etc.). The solar power from the projects (i.e., the corresponding renewable energy certificate) does not go to the subscribers, but instead is counted toward renewable usage by all FPL customers.
Home solar with net metering: FPL currently offers a “net metering” rate for solar and other types of renewable energy installations at customers’ homes (including those with battery backup) under which you can offset your electricity use to lower your monthly bills, and also get credit for any extra power at the same rate you’d pay for it. I say “currently” because as of the date this post was written, there’s a bill awaiting either the signature or veto of Governor DeSantis that would allow FPL (and other Florida utilities) to significantly increase charges and reduce credits for customers with home solar. Since I’m aiming to stay away from politics, no comment on whether that’s a good or a bad idea, but if you want to find many other people’s opinions you can search for information on House Bill 741 and see what’s out there.
So which of these is the best option? Only you can figure out what’s a smart choice for you, but of course I wouldn’t be a good clean energy nerd if I didn’t try to highlight some important questions to ponder:
Will you actually get clean energy? As I explain in Step One, you can’t claim to be getting clean electricity unless you actually pay for and get ownership of the “renewable energy certificate” that captures the renewable attribute of that electricity. On that front, the SolarNow program is a clear “no” — FPL is upfront that the renewable energy is credited toward all of their customers, and you also won’t know exactly how much additional solar energy is actually resulting from your monthly payment. If you want to support clean energy for the whole grid or just don’t have any better options right now, that may not be a dealbreaker, but it’s important to understand.
What kind of clean energy is it? Some people have strong feelings about what kind of solar they want — smaller projects distributed throughout communities or large, “utility-scale” projects. If you want to join me in the energy weeds, you can read about some of the arguments for each here. I’m not taking sides, other than to say many varieties of solar can play a beneficial role in the grid depending on the circumstances. But if you care about this issue then it’s worth noting the SolarTogether program is definitely an example of utility-scale solar while the SolarNow and home solar options fit in the distributed solar model.
How much will you get? Looking ahead to Step Two, you may end up increasing your electricity use over time. If you’re not doing that all at once, you may want to think about how you can add to your carbon-free electricity supply down the road, whether that’s by increasing your share in a SolarTogether project, waiting on a home solar project until after you’ve bought an EV and know how much electricity you’ll need for charging, adding more solar panels down the road, or some other approach.
How much will you pay? Ultimately you’ll have to price this out as well as you can based on your individual circumstances, but in theory both SolarTogether and home solar could end up turning you some kind of profit in the end since they allow for you to invest in a solar project directly — either FPL’s or your very own — and get the value of the electricity generated, whatever that might be. In both cases, there’s no way to know exactly what that value is up front, so like any investment you’ll have to accept some risk as to what payoff (or loss) you might end up with. For SolarTogether, that risk comes from the variable price of electricity and FPL’s whims as the entity that sets the terms of the program (under the regulatory supervision of the Florida Public Service Commission). For home solar, the risk is in potential changes to the “net metering” rate, as noted above, and whether you might get added value from selling your renewable energy certificates or in your home itself if and when you want to sell it. Either way, you could get a better or worse deal depending on the upfront costs of your investment and long-term price of the (renewable) electricity you’re paying for. It’s up to you to evaluate that risk and potential returns. That may feel scary, but it’s the same thing you do outside the clean energy world when you’re making any major purchase and hoping you get what you pay for.
Step Two
In what may be a nice change of pace, this step is fairly short in terms of unique considerations for an FPL customer. The main thing to know is that over the next few years FPL will be building out more public EV charging stations along major highways and also starting a pilot program where they install a Level 2 charger at your home and allow free off-peak charging (more on that in Step Three below), with a total investment in EVs of about $200 million through 2025. To the extent you’re nervous about being able to access affordable EV charging, that should be a big help. It’s also worth noting that FPL’s rebate program for air conditioners does cover heat pumps, as long as they’re installed by an approved contractor (although I’d still start with the HVAC 2.0 network at Step Zero).
Step Three
Since FPL is one of the utilities that has installed “smart meters” for its residential customers, there are a few options for lowering your bill by avoiding electricity use at those peak demand times I talked about in Step Three. Here’s the current menu from FPL:
Time of Use rate: I start with this one because it’s the most comprehensive, offering rate discounts for any home electricity usage you can shift “off-peak” (overnight, weekends, and holidays for the whole year; morning in the summer; and mid-day in the winter). That does mean you’ll pay a higher rate for any usage during the peak times — weekday summer afternoons and evenings, and weekday winter mornings and evenings. FPL does offer a phone consultation option to get an analysis of how that might work for you based on your individual usage patterns, but remember that they can’t account for you taking steps to change those patterns in the future. If you buy an EV or get a smart thermostat that will manage your HVAC in conjunction with a time-of-use rate (e.g., ecobee with eco+ or Google Nest), then you may improve your savings potential. Fortunately, FPL allows for a one-month trial period to decide if this program is a “good fit,” after which you can go back to the standard rate if you’d like.
On Call program: This is what’s called a “demand response” program, where you get bill credits if you let FPL turn off certain home appliances during times of peak electricity demand (for up to three to four hours a day) in order to ease the stress on the grid and prevent blackouts. You do have to have central air conditioning to enroll, since that tends to be the biggest slice of peak electricity use for residential customers, and if you have central electric heating you’ll have to include that too. If you want additional credits, you can opt in for your electric water heater and single-speed pool pump (if you have them). This program actually doesn’t involve any “smart” technology at all — FPL will come out and install controls directly on your appliances that enable remote control, and simply hit the “off” button during grid emergencies. The good news is that you get a monthly credit on your bill whether or not any emergency actually happens — all the details are here.
Home EV charging pilot: For those of you who want to take things a little more slowly, as noted above FPL will be launching a special program for discounted “off-peak” charging for EVs in summer 2022. Since the program hasn’t launched yet I can’t tell you that much about it other than you may be able to save money on fueling up an electric vehicle; you can sign up here to get notified as more details are announced.
Which options should you choose? Wrong question — at least for me. I can tell you what you might think about in making that choice for yourself, though:
How much certainty do you want? Putting aside the EV charging program, since I don’t have all the details on that yet, the difference between the FPL time-of-use rate and On Call program mainly boils down to certainty, or lack thereof, on two fronts. The On Call program has very defined parameters in terms of the amount you’ll be paid each month for enrolling, but you won’t know whether or when FPL might turn off your enrolled appliances — under the applicable terms and conditions they can do that whenever they want, for up to three hours for air conditioning or heat and four hours for hot water or a pool pump. The time-of-use rate, on the other hand, leaves you in complete control of your electricity use, but doesn’t offer any guarantees as to how high your bill might go if you’re blasting your air conditioning or running the dishwasher on a summer afternoon.
How flexible are you? I would never say that a time-of-use rate or demand response program is the right choice for everyone. That said, those of you who are in the office on summer weekdays (do people still do that?) or who are willing and able to pay a couple extra bucks to do laundry on a Tuesday morning in December are more likely to be able to accommodate changes to your energy use under either type of program. If you have a smart thermostat that can manage HVAC use for you “around” a time-of-use rate, that may take a big load off your shoulders too. And of course, the FPL EV charging pilot may end up offering the opportunity to dip your toe in the water with one of your most flexible categories of electricity use to give you a taste of how smart energy management can actually work for you.
What’s your climate budget? I said it before, but I’ll say it again: if this step doesn’t save you money or even increases your bills a little bit each month, it may still be a worthwhile endeavor — if you can afford it. Especially with a utility like FPL that’s moving more toward solar energy, adjusting your electricity use can help integrate those solar resources into the grid while keeping costs down for everyone. Something to think about.
Well, that’s all folks. Since this is my first shot at this type of blog post, I’d be glad to get any feedback you might care to offer. Otherwise, I hope this was useful — and as much fun for you as it was for me! (Ha ha, there’s no way you had as much fun as me.)
