Final Might, Florida enacted a regulation deleting any reference to local weather change from most of its state insurance policies, a transfer Republican Governor Ron DeSantis described as “restoring sanity in our method to power and rejecting the agenda of the unconventional inexperienced zealots.”
That hasn’t stopped the Sunshine State from turning into a nationwide chief in photo voltaic energy.
In a first, Florida vaulted previous California final yr when it comes to new utility-scale photo voltaic capability plugged into its grid. It constructed 3 gigawatts of large-scale photo voltaic in 2024, making it second solely to Texas. And within the residential photo voltaic sector, Florida continued its longtime management streak. The state has ranked quantity two behind California for essentially the most rooftop panels put in annually from 2019 by way of 2024, based on information the power consultancy Wooden Mackenzie shared with Canary Media.
“We do count on Florida to proceed as quantity two in 2025,” stated Zoë Gaston, Wooden Mackenzie’s principal U.S. distributed photo voltaic analyst.
Florida is predicted to once more be neck and neck with California for this yr’s second-place spot in utility-scale photo voltaic installations, stated Sylvia Leyva Martinez, Wooden Mackenzie’s principal utility-scale photo voltaic analyst for North America.
General, the state receives about 8 p.c of its electrical energy from photo voltaic, based on Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation information. The overwhelming majority of its energy comes from fossil gasoline.
The state’s photo voltaic surge is the results of climate — each good and dangerous — and insurance policies on the state and federal degree which have made panels cheaper and simpler to construct, advocates say.
“Clearly in Florida, sunshine is extraordinarily plentiful,” stated Zachary Colletti, the chief director of the Florida chapter of Conservatives for Clear Vitality. “We’ve obtained loads of it.”
The state can be going through a rising variety of excessive storms. Of the 94 billion-dollar climate disasters that federal information exhibits unfolded in Florida since 1980, 34 occurred within the final 5 years.
“Floridians have lengthy understood that not solely is photo voltaic good in your pocket, it’s additionally good in your residence resilience,” stated Yoca Arditi-Rocha, the chief director of The CLEO Institute, a Miami-based nonprofit that advocates for local weather motion. “Within the face of accelerating excessive climate occasions, getting access to dependable power is a large motivator.”
The tax credit accessible below former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act, or IRA, have additionally made shopping for panels cheaper than ever earlier than, she stated.
“Lots of people took benefit of that. I’m certainly one of them,” Arditi-Rocha stated. “As quickly as I noticed that the federal authorities was going to provide me 30 p.c again on my taxes, I determined to make the funding and obtained myself a photo voltaic system that I might pay again in seven years. It was a win-win proposition.”
However photo voltaic began rising in Florida lengthy earlier than Democrats handed the IRA in 2022, and that’s because of favorable state insurance policies.
Municipalities and counties have little say over energy crops, giving the Florida Public Service Fee final management over siting and allowing. Plus, photo voltaic crops with a capability below 75 megawatts are exempt from assessment and allowing altogether below the Florida Energy Plant Siting Act.
The latter coverage particularly has made constructing photo voltaic farms straightforward and cheap for the state’s main utilities, stated Leyva Martinez. Corporations similar to NextEra Vitality–owned Florida Energy & Mild, the state’s largest electrical utility, have for years patched collectively gigawatts of photo voltaic with small farms.
“We’re seeing this wave of venture installations at gigawatt scales, however should you have a look at what’s really being constructed, it’s a small 74-megawatt [project] right here or a 74.9-megawatt venture there,” she stated. “It’s simply simpler to allow within the state, and builders have realized that they will preserve installations at this vary and so they don’t must undergo the longer course of.”
The photo voltaic buildout has prompted some backlash in rural components of the state. A invoice Republican state Senator Keith Truenow filed final month proposes granting some further native management over siting and allowing photo voltaic farms on agricultural land.
“You’re beginning to see a lot extra complaining concerning the abundance of photo voltaic installations in additional rural areas,” Colletti stated. The laws, he stated, “would add some hurdles and in the end add prices” however “wouldn’t essentially reverse the state’s preemption” of native allowing authorities.
NextEra and Florida Energy & Mild didn’t reply to an e-mail requesting remark. Nor did Truenow return a name.
Whereas the invoice is presently making its means by way of the Legislature, DeSantis beforehand vetoed laws that threatened Florida’s photo voltaic buildout.
In 2022, the governor blocked a utility-backed invoice to finish the state’s web metering program, which pays owners with rooftop photo voltaic for sending additional electrical energy again to the grid throughout the day.
“The governor did the fitting factor by vetoing that invoice that will have strangled web metering and a lot of the rooftop photo voltaic trade in Florida,” Colletti stated. “I do know Floridians are a lot better off for it as a result of we’re capable of offset our prices very properly and take extra management and possession over our households.”
A phone survey carried out by the pollster Mason-Dixon in February 2022 discovered that amongst 625 registered Florida voters, 84 p.c supported web metering, together with 76 p.c of self-identified Republicans.
“It’s not about left or proper,” Arditi-Rocha stated. “It’s about ensuring we dwell as much as our state’s title. Within the Sunshine State, the longer term will be actually sunny and vivid if we proceed to harness the facility of the solar.”