TALLAHASSEE -- Signaling another shift in direction at the Public Service Commission, state utility regulators ordered their staff Tuesday to come up with ``more robust'' energy conservation goals that reward customers for using less energy.

The panel unanimously agreed to postpone a decision on energy conservation goals after Commissioners Nathan Skop and Nancy Argenziano chastised the staff for setting the goals too low. By law, the commission must set a conservation goal for electric companies to meet each year for the next five years, and then come up with a plan to reward them financially for exceeding the goal or punish them for failing to meet it.

Skop accused the staff of coming up with a plan that tries ``to align with everything the utilities wanted.''

He said the conservation goals recommended by PSC staff were so low that companies like Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy could easily meet them and then obtain the financial reward for little effort.

Argenziano said utilities should consider offering more rebates to help low- and moderate-income customers who can't afford to replace their inefficient air conditioners or buy the more expensive energy-saving light bulbs.

``What I'm afraid of is, we're not moving aggressively enough to have meaningful energy conservation goals,'' she said.

Tom Ballinger, a staff director at the PSC's division of economic regulation, argued that it would be unfair to give people financial incentives to buy energy-efficient items that they would buy even without incentives. Staff members even have a derogatory term for people who would benefit from such behavior: ``free riders.''

The staff plan recommended no free riders be offered incentives, an approach Skop and Argenziano criticized as too limited because it eliminated 80 percent of the potential energy savings that utilities could produce in the next five years.

Skop said that financial incentives should be considered for a wide variety of programs, maybe even for energy-efficient light bulbs.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com.