There appear to be quite a few legislators in Tallahassee who don’t mind taking away income from their constituents and giving the money to the power companies. Yes, that is right, two bills in the Legislature will accomplish just that, and they passed committees just last week.
What the bills, Senate Bill 1024 and House Bill 741, will do is pull the rug out from under our formerly progressive net metering provisions in Florida’s solar law, making it more expensive for homeowners and small businesses to produce their own electricity.
This means homeowners like me who installed a system last year will have to spend more and receive less in benefits than we bargained for to produce solar electricity. When we installed our systems, the price that the power companies had to pay us to buy our power was fair, if not overly generous.
Now legislators want to change the rules to benefit the power companies and hurt solar users. I call it changing the rules in the middle of the game. It penalizes those who trusted the rules by which we thought we were playing and financially hurts us.
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In my case, I stand to lose hundreds of dollars per year, possibly more, all to help slow down climate change and stop burning fossil fuels, which have all but destroyed my home state of West Virginia’s air and water over the last hundred years of “progress.”
Of course, I didn’t do it just for the net metering money, but it was part of the financial equation making going solar more attractive. Thanks, legislators who sponsored and voted for these bills.
Leslee McCarty
Homosassa