Abstract
In the United States, there is no leadership at the national level to attack the problem of climate change due to the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the absence of federal policy, individual states work toward reducing GHG through a statewide sustainable energy policy. These sustainable policies enforce actions to be taken by electric utilities to decrease the amount of fossil fuel energy generation and increase the use of renewable energy sources with no GHG emissions. The state of Florida has no overall sustainable energy policy that would affect climate change concerns. The purpose of this study is to review the current state policy in Florida and compare it with two other states with more robust energy policies. Similar policies in Florida would then be considered that would lead the state to lower GHG emissions. Florida’s energy policy is brief and lacking in detail. The state encourages renewable energy and requires an annual accounting of the renewable energy percentage by the major electric utilities. There is no mandate for renewable energy or systematic plan to reduce fossil fuel generation in the state. Florida will be compared to two other states, Texas and North Carolina. These states were chosen for similarities such as politics, culture, and demographics. In contrast to Florida, Texas and North Carolina both have a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), a tracking system of renewable energy credits (REC) to ensure compliance with the RPS, and a carve-out for a specific renewable energy resource. These policies have increased the renewable energy capacity in both states since the year the RPS was enacted. Texas met its goal before the target date and North Carolina is on track to meet its 2021 target. North Carolina is second in the nation only to California for statewide amount of solar capacity. Texas supplies almost a quarter of the wind energy in the nation. These states’ sustainable energy policies, including a mechanism to support those policies, have met their renewal energy targets. Texas has even exceeded the original renewable energy target. Texas renewable energy generation was at 13.3% in 2016, while North Carolina generation was at 4.6%. Although the Florida utilities have installed more renewable energy capacity in the past two years, there is no target set with tracking mechanisms that are found in a typical renewable portfolio standard. Florida increased the renewable energy capacity percentage from 1.9% to 4.4% over three years (2016 – 2018) and has plans to increase it to 8.8% by 2026. These plans are outlined in the Ten-Year Power Plant Site Plan. Each utility creates a Ten-Year plan that is filed with the Florida Public Service Commission. For renewable energy sources, the generating capacity in MW as a percentage of total generating capacity is a larger number than the actual generation percentage in kWh. This is due to the variable production of a renewable energy source. The planned 8.8% generation capacity that results is a lower percentage of the actual electrical generation. The plan for increased capacity is commendable but still short of renewable potential in the state. The recommended elements of a sustainable energy policy in Florida are a state RPS, a state tracking system of RECs, and a new mandate that all new generating units be from a renewable source unless granted an exception by the state public service commission. The state RPS would require the electric utilities to generate a certain percentage of their electrical generation from renewable energy sources. Targets are set and penalties in place for missing the target. The state tracking system of Renewable Energy Credits will allow outside parties to generate with renewable sources and create the RECs. The tracking system allows the utilities to purchase the RECS, if needed, to satisfy their individual target in the RPS. This opens up the market for other entities to create renewable power to sell the credits to the electric utilities. A new policy could be the requirement for all new generation to be from renewable resources, unless an exception is granted by the FPSC. There would be no further fossil fuel power plants built in Florida except for special provisions. This would put the onus on the utilities and the FPSC to explain to the consumer why a non-renewable resource is planned for the next power plant.