Solar advocates put the Orlando Utilities Commission’s PeakSHIFT plans on blast at a rally outside City Hall Wednesday evening, ahead of an expected Tuesday vote on the package of changes proposed for the municipal utility’s pricing structure.
Community organizers, solar industry workers and local elected officials shared concerns that the proposed new programs would drive up energy bills for most OUC customers and discourage rooftop solar installations by reducing compensation rates for solar producers who send extra power back to the grid. That practice is called net metering, which Florida law requires utilities to make available for customers.
Among Wednesday’s speakers was Orlando District 5 Commissioner Patty Sheehan, one of PeakSHIFT’s fiercest critics.
“I really wish I didn't have to be here. It's kind of weird, being a city commissioner and being against the Orlando Utilities Commission,” Sheehan began.
But OUC’s proposal raises too many red flags, Sheehan said, pushing her to speak up: especially on behalf of marginalized groups who would face extra challenges under the new pricing framework, like seniors with specialized health needs. Under OUC’s proposed changes, customers would pay more for using energy at certain high-demand times.
“Seniors cannot shift this usage to off-times. They will be charged higher rates during the day, when they need life-saving oxygen,” Sheehan said, adding she learned during the last two years of her mother’s life that oxygen machines aren’t very energy-efficient.
But OUC doesn’t seem worried, Sheehan said: “When I brought up this concern, it was summarily dismissed.”
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Already, Orlando residents take on uneven energy burdens, with lower-income households generally spending a bigger chunk of earnings on energy than higher-earning households. That’s a datapoint OUC knows well, citing it at an initial PeakSHIFT presentation in June.
Now, advocates worry OUC’s new proposal will create even more barriers to energy equity.
“Limiting net metering and raising fixed charges disproportionately harms those who are struggling currently with their energy costs,” said Kevin Duarte, environmental justice organizer for Poder Latinx.
But on the contrary, OUC maintains, the proposed changes are designed to be “revenue neutral” and “align costs more equitably with how customers use electricity,” based on each individual customer’s use of the system.
“Rather than raising prices, customers who demand less of the system will pay less and those who demand more of the system will pay more,” OUC wrote in a statement. “We anticipate small monthly bill changes with about half of OUC’s non-rooftop customers seeing lower or no change to their monthly bills.”
In that statement issued Tuesday, OUC pushed back on alleged “misinformation” it said is spreading from conversations with “stakeholders, customers, social and environmental advocacy groups, and other community members.” Without naming any specific groups, OUC rejected recent claims that its new programs would double customers’ utility rates.
But that’s exactly what Orlando residents and businesses alike can expect if PeakSHIFT comes to fruition, according to the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association or FlaSEIA, which is leading a “Save Orlando Solar” campaign against the proposal.
“In states where these programs have been put in place, rates have gone up dramatically,” said FlaSEIA President Bill Johnson.
Generally, companies with lots of resources and power generating capacity are better-positioned to shift their energy usage patterns, compared to residential customers, Johnson said. For all different reasons — many equity-related — people often simply can’t avoid using energy at certain times of the day, even if it would cost more under OUC’s new demand-driven pricing plan.
“Having a residential homeowner have to worry about that demand fee — very few other utilities around the country do that,” Johnson said. “It's just not done. It's not fair.”
But with energy demands and costs only projected to keep exploding, OUC has to make some changes, the utility said.
“Our original solar incentive for rooftop solar customers is no longer financially cost-effective with today’s grid realities and utility-scale solar delivers better value. Utility-scale deployment is about a third of the cost per-kilowatt of residential rooftop PV,” the OUC statement reads.
“I think we all understand that there are major changes coming to the grid,” Johnson said. “There needs to be change … but how can we, together, make it a win-win for everybody?”
Acknowledging the “potentially overwhelming demand” utilities like OUC are projected to take on in the coming years, Johnson said the Orlando utility should view rooftop solar as part of the solution and lean into incentivizing, not discouraging it.
“Killing the rooftop solar industry is not going to solve their problems,” Johnson said.
