Why Integrate Renewable Energy into Florida’s Electricity Mix?

From REAL – Renewable Energy Alliance

• The cost of electricity from conventional power plants has increased by double digits in recent years due to fuel price spikes. For instance, Progress Energy announced a customer bill increaseof 31% in August 2008⁴, and Florida Power and Light was recently denied a 1.6 billion dollar base rate increase for costs related to its fossil fuel-based generation.
• By comparison, states which diversified their economy with renewable energy have seen minimal or no rate impacts from renewable resources.⁵
• Rather than judge renewable energy according to its short-term price, its long-term benefit should be considered – reduced fuel costs, energy diversity, energy security, reduced pollution and increased job creation benefits
  

•  The renewable energy industry grew three times as fast as the U.S. economy in 2007.

• Solar PV generation has been shown to create at least 15 jobs for each Megawatt (Each Megawatt powers about 600 homes).⁷
  

• A 2007 University of Florida economic study found that a biomass power plant created 9 directjobs per Megawatt (MW), adding $13 million per year to the local economy.⁸
  

• 9 Jobs Created per Solar Biomass MW of Capacity:  15 90.4-0.9
  

• More than 75% of renewable energy jobs are in the manufacturing and construction industries –the exact skill-sets for many in the construction trade who are now unemployed in Florida.¹⁰
  

• A strong renewable energy market in can translate to business for up to 1,617 firms, and a total of18,704 green jobs in the solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass industries.¹¹
  

• A state’s energy mix should appear like a well managed stock portfolio, with diverse assets thathedge risks for the benefit of consumers.
  

• Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) account for 73% of Florida’s energy mix – which means that mostof our energy dollars leave our state.¹²

• If the state doesn’t change course, Florida will get almost half (47%) of its total electric supply from natural gas by 2017.13 Natural gas prices are volatile and dependent on unstable world events. To move into the future, Florida must boost its investment in low-risk renewable resources, which account for approximately only 4% of our total energy mix today.¹⁴

• Renewable resources, such as solar, have no fuel costs and biomass uses a stable, homegrown fuel source that keeps dollars spent on fuel in Florida.

• While conventional power capital construction costs are skyrocketing, solar PV capital costs have
  steadily dropped from $27 per peak watt in 1982 to about $4 today.¹⁵

• Renewable energy projects can be developed by private developers, leaving utility customers free from risk for up-front capital costs and maintenance responsibilities

• When businesses and residents put solar panels on their roofs and communities build biomass plants, electricity is used closer to where it is generated. That means less energy is wasted by transmission loss over long distances across the energy grid.