How electric utilities abuse us... by gimleteye

I always wondered about the charge on my Florida Power and Light electric bill that was supposed to make me feel good for paying an extra $9.75 per month for “Sunshine Energy”.

I pay it. I'm all for solar energy.

Still, it irks me that we have to pay extra for a service—clean, renewable energy in Florida—that the utility should provide as a requirement by state regulators.

Given that providers of electricity are regulated utilities, the logic of paying extra for the utility to provide clean energy escaped me. FPL is a very profitable company, after all.

So I paid the $9.75 per month, but mistrustful that I had been persuaded to pay extra for something FPL should have been doing for its customers all along.

There are many ways that electric utilities abuse the public interest. For one, utilities and the electricity they provide are big gears of the Growth Machine, right next to the massive investments by government that drive a whole set of smaller gears (down to the smallest public relations firm monitoring media criticism of electric utilities), putting large corporations on the same side of the ledger as agencies like Florida Department of Transportation, to name one.

Wires and cables, pipes, pumps and roads take precedence with very small windows of opportunity for influence by citizens. This is how natural gas pipelines get built in the middle of sugar fields. Or, how utilities like FPL try midnight deals in Glades County to put a coal-fired plant near the Everglades, or, slip past Miami county government in the effort to put two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, cooled by God knows what water.

More often than not, by the time common citizens see how growth is planned on their behalf, the infrastructure train has left the station. Then there is global warming.

For decades, electric utilities invested in suppressing the dialogue on climate change. They funded pseudo-science and worse. Along with oil and coal, electric utilities were principal agents thwarting initiatives and policy reforms that might have enhanced our standing in the world and secured our economy but for their actions. Of course, now things have changed. Duke Energy is green as a pea.

But back to my $9.75 per month, an extra charge by FPL (also, the largest producer of wind energy in the nation, but in Texas not Florida): not only does this back story give me reason to doubt my electric utility, how at any rate would I know that this money of mine was going to serve its stated purpose: development of alternative energy in Florida by FPL?

Apparently, the Florida Public Service Commission had the same question, too.

As reported by The Palm Beach Post last week, a probe of FPL’s “Sunshine Energy” program “began in September with requests to the company for documents and explanations. FPL repeatedly responded by filing records under seal, saying the related documents were “proprietary business information” and “contractual vendor data”. Finally, FPL opened its books.

“The bulk of the $9.5 million raised in FPL’s Sunshine Energy Program between 2004 and 2007 was paid to a contractor in Texas for salaries, office expenses, business travel, research, marketing and a public relations consultant to administer the program.” (Palm Beach Post, June 20, 2008, “Bulk of FPL money for renewable energy goes to start-up costs”)

“In the final report, released May 30, all of the findings were blacked out at the request of FPL. However, in papers filed with the state this week, FPL asked the commission to keep only a few sentences confidential because it is “proprietary business information”.

To make a long story, short: it is clear as day how the public has been abused by FPL.

No wonder that a swarm of protesters have emerged in South Florida, showing up at the FPL’s Juno Beach headquarters at the time of shareholder meetings and, recently, leading a protest demonstration at Palm Beach Aggregates (see our index feature, rock mines) that resulted in arrests.

The protesters were hauled into court and found guilty of “unlawful assembly, trespass, and resisting”. The sentence includes a year of probation, no contact with Palm Beach Aggregates or West County Energy Center, and $333 in court costs. According to Palm Beach Environmental Coalition, “there will be a restitution hearing to decide if they will be required to pay the Sheriff’s decision to pay overtime, for which the State is requesting $20,000.”

In Florida, even the best financed environmental groups have a hard time finding a spare $20,000.

As for the $9 million FPL’s non “Sunshine Energy Program” yielded from gullible consumers, it is a rounding error of an amount. So puny, it would scarcely show up in corporate quarterly report.

As for my $9.75 a month, I want my money back. But more than that, I want a new model for the relationship between electricity producers and consumers. So should you.