Orlando Utility Commission Whacks Solar Customers, and Slaps Ratepayers

 PeakSHIFT? More Like Peak … Well, You Know

The Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) must have been feeling bold when it approved the PeakSHIFT program – a set of rules that, despite its lofty goals of modernization, reliability, and sustainability, looks like a direct slap in the face to Florida’s rooftop solar customers and their neighbors. Yes, you read that right: neighbors.

Let’s start with the hilariously skewed math of rooftop solar. When a homeowner with solar panels produces more power than they use, that clean, sunshine-born electricity flows directly to the next available need – typically the neighbor’s house. What does the neighbor pay for that energy? The full retail rate, of course, at about $0.11 per kilowatt-hour. Sounds fair, right? But here’s the kicker: the homeowner who provided that power is only paid back $0.04 per kilowatt-hour, the so-called “production cost” rate.

Essentially, rooftop solar owners are subsidizing their neighbors while OUC pockets the difference. Sweet deal – for the utility.

The Problem with PeakSHIFT

The newly minted PeakSHIFT program has three “innovative” pricing designs:

1. TruNet Solar: Starting in 2025, new rooftop solar customers will get reduced export credits. So, if you’ve been dreaming of solar, congratulations – you can now save even less!
2. DemandLevel: This adds fixed charges based on peak usage because nothing says “save energy” like penalizing you for using your AC during a Florida summer. (This could apply to all customers.)
3. Shift & Save: Encourages off-peak energy use. A great idea if we’re all willing to sleep through the sweltering midday heat and do laundry at 3 a.m.

But here’s the rub: Florida’s power demand spikes during the day – when rooftop solar is producing at its peak. That’s when utilities would otherwise have to rely on “peaker-power,” which costs a fortune compared to base load power. Rooftop solar dramatically reduces this need, saving everyone money. Yet somehow, instead of rewarding these solar heroes, OUC’s PeakSHIFT feels more like a punishment.

And let's not ignore the four-letter word some people use to describe PeakSHIFT. It might rhyme with a certain expletive – and it's not hard to see why.

Who Really Benefits from PeakSHIFT?

Spoiler alert: It’s not the environment, the solar industry, or Florida homeowners. The real winners are the utilities, which get to maintain control over energy production while sidelining rooftop solar. Solar installers are left scratching their heads as they try to sell systems with an extended payback period, and homeowners are discouraged from investing in clean energy because the financial incentives are dwindling faster than an ice cube in July.

It gets even better (worse). By imposing these new rules, OUC effectively shifts the burden of expensive peak power production back onto the grid, conveniently ignoring how much rooftop solar offsets those costs. Meanwhile, solar customers are asked to play ball in a rigged game.

The Double Standard

Here’s the irony: utilities rely on daytime solar power to avoid firing up costly peaker plants, but they still charge full retail rates to neighbors using that power. It’s as if rooftop solar customers are running a lemonade stand, only to have the utility swipe the lemonade and sell it to someone else at triple the price.

This is not just bad policy – it’s comically transparent profiteering disguised as a modernization effort.

The Incentives Are Broken – And They’re Breaking Us

Florida’s power companies operate within a system that rewards them for building, not innovating. Utilities are effectively paid based on the size of their investments and assets under management. The bigger their portfolio, the more profit they rake in – above and beyond the actual cost of those investments. And guess who foots the bill? That’s right: every ratepayer.

A prime example is the introduction of Demand-Level Pricing, a concept historically applied to large commercial entities with significant and erratic peak power usage. Applying this to homeowners, particularly those with rooftop solar, creates an unnecessary and confusing layer of cost management. This system essentially forces homeowners to absorb the utility’s grid balancing burden by either limiting their usage during peak times or investing in expensive battery systems to smooth out their power draw. In essence, new solar customers are expected to perform “power leveling” on behalf of the utility, ensuring grid stability while being charged for the privilege.

Ironically, OUC might even expand demand pricing to all customers, effectively ensuring that all the solar power produced during the day – when demands are highest – is supplied to the microgrid for free. Meanwhile, OUC could still charge customers peak rates for that very same energy, making rooftop solar power a direct subsidy to the utility’s profits.

This warped incentive structure drives utilities to clear vast tracts of land – 500 acres or more – to build massive solar power plants, rather than using existing impervious surfaces like rooftops or parking lots. These utility-scale projects qualify for the same 30% tax credit and depreciation tax shields as rooftop solar, but they also allow the utilities to pad their bottom line with even more capital investments. It’s a sweetheart deal, where utilities make money twice: first on the tax incentives, and then on the guaranteed returns from their growing asset base.

Meanwhile, taxpayers and ratepayers are left footing the bill for this inefficiency. The Florida Public Service Commission and municipal utility commissions, like OUC, often seem more aligned with protecting the profits of local monopoly power companies than with serving the public interest. This isn’t surprising when you consider that many regulators have held – or hope to hold – cushy jobs with the very monopolies they’re supposed to oversee. It’s a cozy arrangement for the utilities, but it leaves Florida homeowners, small businesses, and the environment paying the price.

And, if you think this Goofy Power SH**T is only happening in the Magic City of Orlando, think again. It is happening in California, Luisiana, Florida, and cities everywhere like NYC and throughout Texas.

A Message to OUC

Dear OUC, we see what you’re doing. And, we have to admit, the boldness is almost admirable. But please don’t pretend that PeakSHIFT is about sustainability or fairness. If it were, you’d be paying solar customers the same rate you charge their neighbors. You’d also acknowledge that rooftop solar is not the enemy but a partner in reducing peak energy demand and combating climate change.

Instead, you’ve delivered a program that penalizes those trying to do the right thing while protecting outdated utility profit structures. Bravo.

The Takeaway

The PeakSHIFT program is a masterclass in how not to encourage clean energy adoption. By undervaluing solar production, overcomplicating pricing, and alienating potential customers, OUC has turned what could have been a forward-thinking policy into a punchline. The only thing they are modernizing is their PR spin, and what a whirlpool of miss-information it is.

Florida deserves energy policies that reward innovation and collaboration, not confusion and disincentives. Maybe next time, OUC can aim for solutions that genuinely reflect the spirit of modernization – not just a power grab and siphoning off rooftop solar profits.

By Elmer Hall (2024, Dec. 12) with assistance of ChatGPT 4o, Perplexity.ai, Gemini Advanced and DALL-E for graphics.

#RooftopSolar #RenewableEnergy #RE100 #Solar #REInvestmentTaxCredit #SustainZine #PerpectualInnovation #SBPlan #OUC #PeakSHIFT #NetMetering

#GenAI #rdAI

By Elmer Hall (2024, Dec. 12) with assistance of Perplexity.ai, ChatGPT 4o and Gemini Advanced. Abstract surrealistic artwork inspired by Salvador Dalí's style, depicting the transformation of rooftop solar adoption over time in the central Florida sun. DALL-E (2024, Dec. 12) with prompts by Elmer Hall.

Elmer Hall, DIBA, is President of Strategic Business Planning Company.  SBP develops plans that every organization needs(tm): startups, nonprofit, sustainability, and patent commercialization.  Dr. Hall has published several books and has been a professor of business (DM, DBA & MBA) and Management Information Systems (MIS). With his latest Perpetual Innovation™ books on Rapid Strategic Planning he is using Regenerative Dynamic AI (rdAI) and the motto: Plan Fast, Act Smart, Make a Difference!™