After public outcry, regulators reject utilities’ plan to end energy savings program

In a rare rebuff to Florida’s monopoly utilities, the Public Service Commission on Tuesday voted 4-1 to reject a call for eliminating the 30-year program that encourages utility customers to save energy.

One of the commission’s longest serving members, Tampa attorney Julie I. Brown, persuaded her colleagues to keep the energy efficiency program, which requires monopoly utilities to meet energy conservation goals by offering savings programs to customers and, instead of replacing it, ask the Florida Legislature to review what she considers an outdated law.

The proposal by the utilities “is a drastic reduction in our state in conservation efforts, and I frankly do not believe it’s what the customers want,’’ Brown said. “I don’t believe it’s in the public interest.”

The vote was hailed by environmental groups and two Democratic legislators who for months have urged the public to write to the commission and tell them to reject the utility’s position.

“It’s very rare for the PSC to back off a utility position,’’ said Sen. Jose Javier Rodriquez, D-Miami, who addressed the commission after the vote. “I do think public pressure has an impact and, in all candor, it didn’t used to.”

The commission received more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence from the public, said Cindy Muir, PSC spokesperson. But, she noted, “many were from the same customers.”

The 1980 law, known as the Florida Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (FEECA) sets conservation goals every five years for utilities to meet to encourage customers to conserve energy and avoid the need to build new power plants. Florida has the third-highest electric consumption in the nation with an estimated 92% of its electricity coming from burning fossil fuels.

FEECA allows the utilities to offer programs such as home energy audits, attic insulation, LED light bulbs, water-heater wraps and home improvement subsidies and charge the cost of the programs to

customers.

The utilities argue that the conservation standards are hard to measure because they rely on consumers voluntarily doing things to lower their energy consumption. They attribute the decline in energy usage to improved federal and state building codes and energy-efficient appliances, not the conservation program.

The model, known as the rate impact measure (RIM), is used to measure the impact of the conservation programs on customers based on costs, not on the net savings produced by lowering energy consumption. Utilities argue that it is unfair to some customers who can’t afford to take advantage of energy efficiency investments and benefit from the savings.

But Brown, who was appointed to the commission in 2011 and voted for the current energy efficiency standards in 2014, said the measures used by the PSC to determine the value of the conservation programs are outdated. She recommended that Florida do as other states have done and update how they encourage utilities to adopt programs that save energy.

“The method of evaluating cost effectiveness of energy efficiency will need to change,’’ she said, and she urged the utilities “not to be short-sighted in this regard.”

“I personally think the utilities in our state who embrace energy efficiency will further develop a relationship with their customers,’’ she said.

For the next hour, members of the commission debated Brown’s surprise proposal. First, commissioners resisted the prospect of modifying the recommendation made by the commission’s professional staff, with Commissioner Donald Polmann initially suggesting they agree to zero out most of the conservation goals.

Then, when the commission’s legal staff assured them that Brown’s proposal was allowed by law, they gradually opened the door to taking a rare vote against the utility industry.

“Why do we not advocate for a statute that works because this doesn’t work?’’ asked Polmann, who then withdrew his motion. “Are we that busy that staff and the utilities can’t do the right thing for the state of Florida?”

Commissioner Gary Clark, who was named the commission’s next chairman earlier in the meeting, suggested the commission “look at this and come back and establish some real goals in the future.”

Commissioner Art Graham said that while he doesn’t agree with the way the PSC has set up the current program, he thinks it’s better to have zero conservation goals than continue ones using a faulty program. He voted against preserving the standards as they are.

Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest provider of electricity, thanked the commission’s for its “rigorous debate and desire to ensure that energy efficiency programs are efficient” but didn’t respond to the vote.

“FPL has always and continues to support cost-effective demand side management programs because we don’t believe our customers should overpay to save energy,’’ the company said in a statement.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, who has filed legislation to require utilities to rely on renewable energy by 2050, said after the vote she was “cautiously optimistic” that the PSC heard public outcry.

“I’d like to think that in some small way the consumer won,’’ Eskamani said. “But the battle is not over. We don’t need to repeal FEECA. We need to protect what works and hold the commission to account.”

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@miamiherald.com and @MaryEllenKlas

This story has been updated.

This story was originally published November 5, 2019 at 3:24 PM.