That decision catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. The funds supported a total of five spoiler candidates in state senate and county commission races in 2018 and 2020, as well as efforts to foil a ballot initiative that would have deregulated Florida's energy market. 0:00. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse. He says he told them that he was disappointed, but there was enough work for both of them, based on the good work they had done. The companies that are doing the right thing still have those kinds of plants in their portfolio, specifically coal, but theyre working toward other alternatives, Hope said. Florida Power & Light, one of the largest utilities in the country, abruptly announced the retirement of its chief executive after a tenure marked by strong financial returns, moves toward greener energy and multiple scandals. Yet great amounts of power come at a price. Theyve got the lobbying power, and weve got the people power.. In his Seeking Rents newsletter, publisher Jason Garcia called this decision: one of the most controversial decisions made in recent years by the PSC, a five-member panel comprised of four DeSantis appointees and one remaining holdover from former Gov. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. Records obtained by the Sentinel also show overlap between Grow United and previous campaigns to overhaul net metering. Skeptics of that plan notably included the Office of Public Counsel, thewatchdog group that represents consumers before the Public Service Commission butwas thought to have been more friendly to utility interests after the installation of a longtime industry lobbyist in 2021. A spokesperson for FPL said it stopped working with Canopy in late 2021. One of Matrixs oldest clients is Alabama Power, which employed Perkins personal consulting firm as early as 1999. Higher electricity bills welcomed millions of Florida residents into the new year. The mayor, Lenny Curry, was ideologically predisposed to privatize a large government agency like JEA, and both the official and political arms of his office were surrounded by friends of FPL. "And we support organizations who had that mission.". Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. "It is a decision that is not easy, but I feel good about moving forward and doing it when the company is in its strongest financial and operational position that it's ever been in with a very strong leadership team.". Too, FPL has not set a goal to reduce its emissions to zero because we believe in setting measurable and achievable goals, McGrath said. Bradley filed the bill in November. Still,plants with high emissions are going to draw attention in the overall effort to cut down ongreenhouse gas, experts say. Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, agreed that the report shows just one of many ways to look at emissions. In a 2020 email, Burgess wrote a former Matrix employee with an idea they could "cobble together however many millions of dollars it would take to buy ALL the Florida newspapers from Gannett and then we could let most of the clown reporters go, save a fortune, eliminate print, and syndicate content across the entire state.". Florida Power and Light is launching a webpage dedicated to attacking the Miami Herald specifically Tallahassee bureau chief Mary Ellen Klas for its "biased" reporting on proposed . A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. 2023 www.jacksonville.com. And Burgess himself seemed to recognize it was an unlikely proposal, lamenting that "they are such douchebag newspaper people they added the poison pill to prevent ahostil [sic] takeover, even if it costs them hundreds of millions in stock value" (it's not clear in his email what the alleged"poison pill" is supposed to have been). He argued that customers with rooftop solar are being subsidized by other customers who continue to buy electricity and pay to maintain the power grid. That cost is based on the avoided cost that the utility would have incurred if it were to install a comparable system. "The way I look at it is it's a little earlier than I would have hoped Eric would have wanted to do it.". them with making Rodrguez's life "a living hell.". More:FPL seeks to raise monthly power bills for residental customers by 10%. FPL deployed lobbyists to the capital, while Matrix hired private investigators to dig for dirt and had operatives funnel dark money and order attack ads. ", "We've heard (FPL parent company NextEra's) management assurances about internal investigations," the analyst,Angie Storozynski, wrote, but "any legal, political or regulatory inquiry into FPLs conduct would be highly damaging to the stock.". Rooftop solar in Florida expanded slowly until 2018 when the Florida Public Service Commission allowed electricity customers to lease solar systems with little or no upfront costs. The consultants pitched and supported tactics designed toembarrassindividualreporters who they believed had crossed their client's interests. The Governor appoints members to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for overseeing utilities and determining their profitability, making influence over the Governors office critical to NextEras shareholders. A state board recently rebuffed a request from several Democratic lawmakers for an audit of Florida Power & Light's finances, which the representatives sought following reports linking the . But advocates fear that a FPL-drafted bill to rewrite the states net metering rules will slowly chip away at the main financial incentive for homeowners and businesses to go solar. She also was a corporate operative. I find this to be horrifying and undemocratic, said Gianna Trocino Bonner, former chief legislative aide for Rodrguez, after reviewing some of the leaked documents. While Matrix operatives quietly pulled strings for FPL, strife within their own firm boiled over. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. So it's particularly jarring to have seen the facility land on a list of pollutingelectric plants that included plenty of old-school coal power plants. Quick Links Start, Stop, Move Find My Account Number Pay Online Support Categories Billing & Payments My Account Start, Stop, Move Programs Business Customer Save Money & Energy Power Related Concerns Using FPL.com General Support Virtual Chat Most Common Links He has denied the allegations. Map showing route taken by Matrix LLC to oust Jose Javier Rodriguez from office. Florida Power & Light argues that arrangement is unfair to customers who dont generate their own power but continue to pay for the costs of maintaining the grid that rooftop solar customers also use. Florida Power & Light is pushing for it as Florida's biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the state. A Birmingham mayor who employed Matrix got 15 years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud. Newman in his memo also took credit for a Miami Herald story about the allegation. The company bought an independently owned coal-powered plant in Indiantown in 2016 with the intent to close it, which occurred last summer. That effort culminated with a Matrix employee signing an option agreement to purchase a controlling stake in The Capitolist in September 2019, the records show. Florida now has the second-largest solar workforce in the country about 11,000 direct jobs and 31,000 indirect ones, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Customer Support. When the small south Florida citys mayor helped pass an ordinance in 2017 mandating rooftop solar panels on new construction, a network of 10 FPL-aligned operatives mobilized to ensure his ouster. A short-lived organization called "Fix JEA Now" registered a web domain in 2017 and began making dramatic claims about the city-owned utility. In the Northeast corner of the state, a young, first-termRepublican mayor in Jacksonville was eager to solicit proposals to privatize city services none more enticing than the city's century-old municipal utility, JEA, one of the largest public electric, water and sewer utilities in the United States and a prize FPL had long sought. If were trying to look all in, theres a whole lot to consider upstream from just the burning of the fuel., FPLs McGrath said the Find Energyreport also doesnt tell the companys whole modernization story.. She likened it to comparing emissions from a personal car used once a week and a city bus that takes many trips. Yet he acknowledged that the reports may have had an influence on the decision. According to FPL, the plant also has the best available and most advanced emission-control equipment.. Emails show that Bradleys staff followed up with Florida Power & Light after that discussion. And in 2020, Matrix even harnessed the power of the press for itself, when its employees acquired control of The Capitolist, a Tallahassee-based political news site which it used for favorable coverage, leaked records show. Once we realize the large emitters are large emitters because theyre providing service of great magnitude, and we look at it and we see its so efficient, we have our answer, Patino-Echeverri said. Learn More About FPL News Company Careers Environment Community Donate to Care To Share Rates and Your Bill About Energy Energy My Way Ensuring Reliability Clean Energy Solar Electric Vehicles Power Disturbances Safety Partner Resources Supplier Home and Login PIC Login Reporting, primarily by the Orlando Sentinel, showed spoiler candidates in three state Senate races in 2020 were propped up by at least a half-million dollars from dark-money groups in an effort to help damage the Democrats in those races and help Republicans control the chamber. The financial entanglement between FPL and The Capitolist dated back to 2018, records leaked to the Miami Herald show, when an FPL vice president suggested the website publish a critical piece on DeSantis' Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. independent local journalism in Miami. FPL CEO Eric Silagy (left) speaks with Gov. Asked by Wall Street analysts during an earnings call on Wednesday whether Silagy's retirement was in any way prompted by those reports, the parent company's chief executive asserted that was not the case. 11:52AM. 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According to reporting by the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Power & Light executives have been tied to a series of dark-money nonprofits, one of which figures prominently in the Miami-Dade state attorneys investigation into a scandal involving a ghost Senate candidate. In California, regulators plan to increase fees on rooftop solar customers. Matrix employees spent heavily on political advertisements for a candidate with the same last name as Rodrguez, who split the vote. Landlords would be able to. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida FPL has echoed Pitts' allegations and called into question the veracity of some of the leaked records, although it has repeatedly refused to provide evidence the documents have been altered in any way. The Florida Panhandle is in revolt over bills that some FPL customers claim are double or triple what they were paying under Southern Company's stewardship of Gulf Power. Customers who are already using rooftop solar power before 2023 would be grandfathered in and keep their previous compensation rates for 10 years. In 2018, Perkins Communications received at least $1.49m from Alabama Power, a leaked contract shows. He added that the net metering law has not been updated in 13 years and now is time to discuss it. Ricardo Rossello,. Rick Scott.. Soon, Dunn faced attacks in the rightwing press and online, while Matrix-affiliated groups some of which received millions from a non-profit run by a contractor for Alabama Power filed a motion to intervene in the proceedings. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. FPLs consultants used similar spoiler candidate tactics in the 2020 election cycle in three senate races throughout the state. Its unfortunate that our process allows for something like this to exist without accountability.. TALLAHASSEE Recent revelations about Florida Power & Light's involvement in a dark money scheme to siphon votes away from Senate Democratic candidates prompted its parent company to conduct. Overall, McGrath said the modernization improvements have made their plants 30% more efficient, saved customers more than $11 billion in fuel and kept 165 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted in the atmosphere. I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, but I also dont want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida.. About a decade ago, FPL made the fateful decision to hire Matrix LLC, an Alabama-based political consulting firm notorious in its home state but with little public profile in Florida. "Based on the information we have, we . There was no question the company would be the leading bidder almost by default. That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. And a former regional administrator for the EPA who did business with Pitts pleaded guilty to violating state ethics law multiple times. Justin Vandenbroeck, the president of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association who also owns an Orlando-based solar installation company, said the solar industry consists mostly of independently-owned small businesses. FPL did not respond to requests for comment by deadline. Silagy, CEO since 2014, will depart the company in April. ", FPL lauds its reliability and maintains it has the lowest electricity rates in the country. Upon realizing the extent of Pittss shadow operations and abuses of power, we filed our lawsuit against Pitts and those few rogue employees.. After an early round of reports, NextEra commissioned an internal investigation into the allegations against Silagy and Florida Power & Light in Florida. Pitts, who left Matrix in December 2020 to start his own firm, Canopy Partners, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Moving Florida toward a brighter energy future. A note of gratitude to our friends at the Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight News, with whom we have worked in partnership to report our stories. for Floodlight and Annie Martin for Orlando Sentinel, he CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. I just want to reach out and see if I could get an electronic copy of the net metering bill so I can put it into drafting.. NPR and Floodlight reported the same consulting firm did work in Alabama for that state's dominant energy utility, Alabama Power, and funneled money to news sites there that reported negatively on the utility's critics and regulators. Top executives at utility giant Florida Power & Light worked closely with the political consultants who orchestrated a scheme to promote spoiler candidates in three key state Senate elections last year, according to documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. And an additional kudos to the Miami Herald for its own story on the latest batch of leaked Matrix records, which can be read here. The West County Energy Centeruses three combined-cycle generating units thatburnnatural gas in a turbine much like a jet engine and in turn usesthat exhaust to make a second power source of steam. Such a turn in the political tidecould be particularly dire for a regulated company like FPL, whose literal fortunes rise and fall on the decisions made by the Public Service Commission appointees of the governor who must sign off on any number of high-stakes operational and financial issues for Florida's private utilities, starting with electric rates. 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