Author: Danny Parker

What About Florida? Energy Efficiency, Solar Energy, & Regulatory Backwardness In The Sunshine State (Part…

6 years ago Danny Parker 0 Comments

Against complaints of their dismantling efficiency programs, a laudable accomplishment for Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) is their recent plans to greatly increase renewable energy generation. It is true that utility scale solar remains lower cost than rooftop solar for generation when both investments are unsubsidized. Also, it can be seen in the latest third party evaluation of the cost effectiveness of various generation resources that utility scale solar is now cost competitive with natural gas combined cycle generation even though solar will have to be part of a diversified collection of resources to meet 24 hour needs, according to this Lazard analysis1.

What About Florida? Energy Efficiency, Solar Energy, & Regulatory Backwardness In The Sunshine State (Part…

6 years ago Danny Parker 0 Comments

For traditional investor-owned utilities (IOUs) in Florida, corporate policy remains keyed on maximizing electricity sales and effectively justifying construction of new generation resources that are a high source of profit for stockholders. As regulated monopolies, IOUs are guaranteed a profit by the public service commission (PSC) both for selling electricity and associated transmission lines, but particularly for building power plants. And Florida with its fast-growing population and thus expanding residential sector with high levels of cooling electricity use has guaranteed the need for new power plants. As such, the state has been a gold mine for its IOUs in the state — the average household spends nearly $2000 annually for electricity. With millions of accounts, this is a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream.

What About Florida? Energy Efficiency, Solar Energy, & Regulatory Backwardness In The Sunshine State (Part…

6 years ago Danny Parker 0 Comments

The Florida Solar Energy Center is Florida’s independent energy research institute and part of the University of Central Florida. We are a state energy research laboratory and I’d argue that our efforts have been unparalleled in experimentation and measurement of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies applied to housing in Florida. Homes are key to the energy picture in Florida since more than half of the total state electricity consumption is used in the residential sector: 118,453 GWh in 8,786,683 households in 2016.

What About Florida? Energy Efficiency, Solar Energy, & Regulatory Backwardness In The Sunshine State (Part…

6 years ago Danny Parker 0 Comments

Florida has been famously known as the Sunshine State — an old nickname that was officially adopted in 1970 by the state legislature. I have been researching the energy use of U.S. homes and how to reduce it for my entire career — nearly 40 years. Most of that time I’ve spent as a researcher at the Florida Solar Energy Center, which is the state’s dedicated energy research institute and part of the University of Central Florida.

What About Florida? Energy Efficiency, Solar Energy, & Regulatory Backwardness In The Sunshine State (Part…

6 years ago Danny Parker 0 Comments

Florida is known for hurricanes1. As a teenage kid growing up in Miami, we never knew anything about the glory of snow days up North, but we did have Hurricane Days. They usually came in the worst month of Florida’s weather — September. That month, after all, came at the end of a long and hot Florida summer known to be famously muggy and wet. Late August and September are also the rainiest periods in the Liquid Sunshine State, and even worse, school started back before Labor Day.