Florida Power and Light calls it their “Sunshine Energy Program”, but until last week, the Miami Florida-based electric utility has repeatedly refused to turn over documents showing how it spent the $10 million dollars it collected from ratepayers for the program. The utility has been inviting its customers to add a charge on their monthly bill to develop solar power in the state.
After a nine-month probe, regulators finally got their hands on the details of the program, and shed a little sunshine on the matter: It turns out that the utility spent three quarters of the money on green marketing and public relations.
It seems that convincing the public that you are “green” while you are operating more than 5,000 megawatts of nuclear generation is an expensive proposition. So what did the utility do with $2 million dollars that was left over after paying for its green-washing campaign? Most of it went to buying renewable energy credits from out of state companies, including from a Texas wind farm owned by (get this) Florida Power and Light. Asked to justify using Florida ratepayer money to buy out-of-state renewable energy that it already owned, a spokesman for the company explained that the purchases took place through a third party broker. Huh?
Note to New Mexico readers: FPL built the wind farm for PNM's "Sky Blue" program. Time to audit that program too?
(See the video that includes this story.)