We are consistently one of the cleanest electric utilities in the country, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said. Emails show that Bradleys staff followed up with Florida Power & Light after that discussion. A Birmingham mayor who employed Matrix got 15 years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud. That statement was made before additional rounds of damaging disclosures prompted the investigation by the outside law firm. FPL bristled at the inclusion of its power plantson the list bythe website Find Energy, which aggregates and analyzes finalized government data on electricity companies. The email was forwarded on to Silagy,though there is no indication the company seriously entertained Burgess' idea. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. 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 Developing a green hydrogen plant on the site of the former Indiantown coal plant. They work off intimidating. Silagy is to be replaced by Armando Pimentel, a former senior executive at NextEra Energy. Im not afraid if the conclusion is its not the time to do this. 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. Matrix was never accused of wrongdoing. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. . The list consists of 83 coal-powered plants, 16 natural gas plants and one plant that uses petroleum coke as its primary fuel type. In Perkins telling, he was getting ready to hand over leadership of Matrix in December 2020 when Pitts surprised him by leaving the firm, taking three employees as well as most of Matrixs Florida-based clients with him to launch Canopy. And then apparently, somewhere along the way, Jeff and Joe got sideways, Silagy said. There are reasons to prefer alternatives that are not fossil-fuel intensive. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. But utility experts have testified to the Florida Public Service Commission that rooftop solar in the state could grow at a rate of 39 percent a year until 2025 if Floridas current net metering system is left in place. The Matrix saga illustrates the political obstacles policymakers and experts face as they attempt to cut climate pollution from the power sector, one of the biggest greenhouse gas contributors in the US. It is a regulated monopoly which means that the. While the transition to natural gas has reduced emissions that would otherwise come from oil or gas, and installing utility-scale solar is an important step, getting to zero emissions takes a lot more than that, she said. She also was a corporate operative. small-scale solar capacity in the state. Thats not where the story ends, however, or the whole picture. "Based on the information we have, we . Dunn lost his 2014 re-election campaign by a 19-point margin to Chip Beeker, a catfish farmer who is still in office. Former FPL senior executive Armando Pimentel was named as Silagy's replacement. The non-profit, called Broken Promises, first donated the funds to a political committee called Consumers for Energy Fairness. $2.75 million in tax breaks on speculative green hydrogen, tens of billions of dollars for burying lines, 2018 state senate race in Gainesville, FL, secured a deal to freeze FPL rates in 2005 as Attorney General, opposed FPLs $1.3 billion rate increase in 2009, calling the utility out for raising its rates on Floridians, largest donation FPL had ever made at the time, Utility front groups spending on disinformation advertising. NextEra officials say that investigation is close to completion. You gotta bow down and kiss the ring.. Florida is one of 47 states that allow households and businesses that produce power to sell it back to the grid at a set rate. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. "It's a 24-hour day job. View dataset here. Responding to dark money controversy, NextEra did internal investigation into FPL. In 2020,the plant generated 19.7 million megawatt hours of energy and had an emissions rate of 371.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. Landlords would be able to. Ron DeSantis, approved FPLs rate hike, raising Floridians monthly bills by over $1.5 billion in the next few years with annual increases through 2025, while increasing FPLs profits. At the same time, getting to 100% elimination of greenhouse gas emissions for the energy sector is very hard to do with just renewables. Join the New Times community and help support 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. Its a tough, and expensive, goal to achieve, Patino-Echeverri said. NeitherFPL executives nor the consultants identified in the secret records have been accused of wrongdoing in that investigation. 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. Florida is one of 47 states that allow households and businesses that produce power to sell it back to the grid at a set rate. Pitts in turn has accused Perkins of defamation and of leaking confidential records to the media. Flight data shows Matrixs planes made more than 130 flights to five states in 2020 alone, frequently crisscrossing the south-eastern US but also traveling as far west as New Mexico. In Florida, Matrixs work touched almost every level of politics, from influencing local mayoral and county commission elections to combating attempts to reshape the state constitution. The last year of Silagy's leadership was marked by high natural gas prices; the global supply chain crisis; two disastrous hurricanes; and a barrage of damning media reports. Too, FPL has not set a goal to reduce its emissions to zero because we believe in setting measurable and achievable goals, McGrath said. Net metering is a popular program that gives people the right to choose the energy that works for them, provides benefits to all ratepayers and creates thousands of energy jobs across Florida.. Methane is 25 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. The bill as it is written will decimate this industry.. More:FPL seeks to raise monthly power bills for residental customers by 10%. "JEA is broken," the group boasted on its website, where it posted Times-Union coverage of the utility's involvement in an over-budget, behind-schedule nuclear project in Georgia. 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. This is a tired tactic that utilities have used to maintain their monopoly grip on electricity markets, said Will Giese, southeast regional director for the Solar Energy Industries Association. Out of this, the FPL executive told Burgess, according to the Herald. 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. In each of those cases, Matrix was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable power. I just wanted to check in and see if you had any follow up information or language in regards to the net metering bill you discussed with Senator Bradley., Holley replied eight minutes later: I do. Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School said the whole purpose of firms like Matrix is to conceal that its the utility doing this. Forgive me for being unserious at a time when companies like Florida Power & Light (FPL)the nation's largest utilitykeep racking up scandals, but it's kind of hard to keep track of the. It backed a failed ballot amendment in 2016 that would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. A spokesperson for FPL said it stopped working with Canopy in late 2021. Documents shared by an anonymous source show Silagy directing his team to make life hell for Florida senator Jos Javier Rodrguez. The warm light races across a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. [But] now we have this incredible corruption and a reversal of that because they are using their advantage to hang on to power and undermine democracy, he said. With Gulf Power in hand, FPL would serve more than 12 million customers more than half the population of the third largest state in the country. In the remarkably successful years of its ambitious expansionism, secret records show FPL may have also been sowing the seeds of its more uncertain present. Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. Florida Power & Light, whose work with dark-money political committees helped to secure Republican control of the state Senate in the 2020 elections, asked state Sen. Jennifer Bradley to sponsor its top-priority bill: legislation that would hobble rooftop solar by preventing homeowners and businesses from offsetting their costs by selling excess power back to the company, an arrangement known as net metering. Silagy, who has been with the company for 20 years, has led FPL since 2011, having risen through the ranks by serving as chief development officer and senior vice president of regulatory and state governmental affairs. A local law firm and the company that owned the coal plant used the charity to pay the representative. This story is a collaboration with Floodlight. Maybe we should double down on energy-efficiency measures. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse. 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. (Neither Alabama Power nor its corporate parent, Southern Company, have commented on those disclosures.). 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. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. So Florida Power & Light did something about it. The ghostcandidate controversy set off a wide-ranging criminal investigation by prosecutors in Miami, whosecured a guilty pleafrom the independent candidate in District 37 andfiled felony charges against Frank Artiles, a former Republican lawmaker accused of bribing the candidate to run. Very early on in this bills ride, I think it has a real chance to settle out in a way that most parties are not upset, he said. Any report or suggestion that we had involvement in, financially supported or directed others to support any ghost candidates during the 2020 election cycle is patently false, and we have found absolutely no evidence of any legal wrongdoing by FPL or its employees, McGrath, the Florida Power & Light spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. At least its not coal., The intent of the report was to highlight coal and the negative of coal and offer information that may be pertinent to those who live near the plants, Hope said. 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 . The fliers warned residents not to let the Environmental Protection Agency test their soil for the presence of contaminants left by a coal plant. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida 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. one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns, would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. One-tenth of 1percent of the power comes from oil. COMMENTARY | Just a 14-minute drive from Florida Power & Light'sheadquarters in Juno Beach is the easternmost point in the state, where the sun's radiant light first cracks the night skyeach morning. 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. Reporting by the Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald tied Silagy to a group of political consultants who had spent millions of dollars to secretly further the power company's political goals. So far, there have been two criminal investigations into the campaign against Rodrguez and another Democratic state senate candidate, leading to charges against five people, though authorities have not accused Matrix or FPL of wrongdoing. Florida Power & Light has a monopoly on power in Florida. invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants bypassing FPL and its monopoly on electricity. "Based on information in our possession, we believe that FPL would not be found liable for any of the Florida Campaign finance law violations as alleged in the media articles," Ketchum said. Added Patino-Echeverri: The No. Early in the evening of Nov. 26, 2019, the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, a political consultant working for utility giant Florida Power & Light sent a pair of confidential documents to an email . ', Death toll keeps rising in Greece's deadliest train crash, Westown Association announces Milwaukee Night Market dates, Embrace the everyday in UNIQLO's viral wide pants, FlyDubai announces record profit as Gulf air travel booms, Southeast's S.P.A.C.E. We simply believe rooftop solar customers should pay the full cost of this investment, McGrath said. Before the prospect of JEA had even been formally proposed, Matrix employees were planting seeds intended to underminepublic confidence in the Jacksonville agency, potentially as early as 2017. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become. Reported contribution totals over $100k as of September 7, 2022, from the Florida Division of Elections Campaign Finance Database. These customers are a mix of 88.48% residential customer accounts, 11.29% commercial customers and 0.22% industrial properties. 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. With these facilities, FPL replaced inefficient 20th-century coal plants and weaned itself off foreign imported oil. Customer Support. The complaint implicated Florida Power & Light in election law violations because of alleged attempts to obscure the source of the political donations. them with making Rodrguez's life "a living hell.". Bradley, who received Florida Power & Lights draft bill, is a first-term senator who is close to Senate leadership and chairs the Community Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Congressional Reapportionment. The warm light racesacross a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. 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