Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. Adding more rooftop solar is one way to cut down on emissions and make the grid more resilient, Shober said. Records obtained by the Sentinel also show overlap between Grow United and previous campaigns to overhaul net metering. This plant has been part of the solution.. We understand this may mean youll continue your campaign to smear FPL or our employees, FPL spokesperson David Reuter told us in the last communication between the company and our reporting team. While some of the actions taken by FPL tick the boxes to reduce emissions, more can be done, Shober said. Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency. NextEra Energy and its subsidiaries, Florida Power & Light and Florida City Gas, have poured nearly $6 million into state level campaign funds and political committees. 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. An organization that acts like a mafia should be treated like one, Stoddard said.In a statement, Newman acknowledged managing the campaign against Stoddard and hiring a private investigator to look into the former mayors personal life. The utility company also contributes to many Democrats and to the Florida Democratic Party. At the start of Monday's earnings call, Ketchum, the chief executive officer of NextEra, addressed media reports and the federal election grievance head-on. That is your choice, but rest assured, we will hold you accountable if that continues to happen. But advocates fear that a FPL-drafted bill to rewrite the states net metering rules will slowly chip away at the main financial incentive for homeowners and businesses to go solar. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. The regulated monopoly is generally seen as a safe, stable investment, but there is some sign the recent public scrutiny could mushroom into a larger problem for FPL. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. Only about 90,000 Florida customers, about 1 percent of the states more than 8.5 million customers, sell excess energy back to the electrical grid, but the arrangement has driven significant rooftop solar expansion in Florida. We simply believe rooftop solar customers should pay the full cost of this investment, McGrath said. It grew by 57 percent in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Many of the documents have since been verified by additional reporting, public records or Perkins himself. Follow him onTwitter@NateMonroeTU. ', 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. For example, in documents obtained by reporters, Silagy had emailed two of his vice presidents to make a state senator's "life a living hell" after proposing a pro-solar bill. McClure conceded the bill is not baked.. The team decided an effort to repeal the ordinance would probably fail. FPLs CEO Silagy in a recent interview denied knowing about or participating in the scheme against Rodrguez but said that Matrix had done good work for his company. Header Image Credit: YouTube, 10 Tampa Bay. Today, FPL said, two-thirds of its power comes from natural gas, followed by nearly 20% nuclear, 4% solar and almost 3% coal, which comes from a plant NextEra partially owns out of state. 2023 www.jacksonville.com. For many years and without my knowledge or approval, Pitts abused his power and position to benefit himself and his cronies, Perkins said in a statement. Discover Your Options Lights out? DeSantis, who is attempting to build a populist profile ahead of a presidential run in 2024,has turned on FPL, having used his veto pen earlier this year to kill one of the utility's highest legislative priorities a controversial bill that would have limited the growth of the residential rooftop solar industryin Florida. Customer Support. The utility also launched a series of solar power investments, including the development of batter storage. Once we realize the large emitters are large emitters because theyre providing service of great magnitude, and we look at it and we see its so efficient, we have our answer, Patino-Echeverri said. There was no question the company would be the leading bidder almost by default. "We could even do it stealthily so we could inject content into all those publications and nobody has to know who's actually pulling the strings," he wrote. The media reports were cited in an October 2022 Federal Election Commission complaint against several of the "dark money" non-profit organizations that received corporate funds. Last June, Florida Power & Light spokesperson David Reuter wrote that the initial review had exonerated the company: "This detailed report found no evidence of illegality or wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees." Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. There are emissions associated with the electricity thats used to frack that gas as well as the local pollution issues, she said. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants. Artiles pleaded not guilty. After more than a decade leading Florida Power & Light (FPL), the state's largest power company, Eric Silagy is retiring. In 2015, Matrix distributed fliers for a suspicious charity in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Birmingham. We are consistently one of the cleanest electric utilities in the country, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said. Few examples are clearer than the case of South Miami. The solar industry disagrees, pointing to research that shows rooftop solar penetration is low enough in most states that the effects of distributed solar on retail electricity prices will likely remain negligible for the foreseeable future.. nears the finish line on new track at Freedom Field, Amazon's Daisy Jones & the Six Is the Latest in a Long Line of Embarrassing Portraits of Musical Genius. Meanwhile, Matrix-led non-profits funded a blizzard of ads against Stoddard, accusing him of using public money for vendettas and placing him alongside infamous sex offenders Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. Landlords would be able to. Under the leadership of Eric Silagy, 54, the company has been tied to allegations of campaign finance violations, media manipulation, and the surveillance of critical journalists. In all, the centerproduces enough electricity for 750,000 homes and businesses. One of those Democrats,Sen. Jos Javier Rodrguez, happened to be both a prominent member of his party and an incumbent FPL particularly despised. This story is a collaboration with Floodlight. In seeking ways to reduce carbon dioxide pollution particularly to address federal emissions goals that aim to stem the effects of climate change its natural to look at the high-emitting plants to find opportunities for efficiencies, said Dalia Patino-Echeverri, an associate professor at Duke Universitys Nicholas School of the Environment, who studies public policy design for energy systems. In California, regulators plan to increase fees on rooftop solar customers. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. The company provided The Palm Beach Post with 2019 data on emissions and energy production at power plants, including its own, which was in line with the source of the 2020 data used by Find Energy. The firm later recovered more than a million files, according to Perkins, who said they reveal years of hidden, shadow work in Florida. . He says he told them that he was disappointed, but there was enough work for both of them, based on the good work they had done. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. Florida Power & Light is the largest electric utility in the state, serving more than 11 million people across vast swaths of Florida. 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. Just in December, the Public Service Commission approved a request from FPL to recover costs from customers due to a 10% increase in natural gas prices. Matrix was never accused of wrongdoing. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. As their feud escalated, internal documents started to arrive in reporters email inboxes from unknown sources. Pitts, who left Matrix in December 2020 to start his own firm, Canopy Partners, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Its also up to us to push them more. The company anticipates the panels will be able to generate 11,657 megawatts. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants bypassing FPL and its monopoly on electricity. Top executives at utility giant Florida Power & Light worked closely with the political consultants who orchestrated a scheme to promote spoiler candidates in three key state Senate elections last year, according to documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. It's easy to pay your bill, view your energy usage, manage your account and more. One person affiliated with Grow United is Abbie MacIver, who formerly worked for Energy Fairness, a group that encourages policymakers to consider the cost of energy choices, as well as their benefits. Last year, McClure sent a letter to state regulators at the Florida Public Service Commission citing the result and urging it to update its net-metering rule. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. FPL has been ensnaredin public scandal over aggressive political tactics that Florida newspapers have laid bare since late last year. 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. 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. A state board recently rebuffed a request from several Democratic lawmakers for an audit of Florida Power & Light's finances, which the representatives sought following reports linking the. That proposal was forwarded to Silagy at FPL but never came to fruition. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Do you need this bus to transport this many people, and do you need it to be this large? she asked hypothetically. Out of this, the FPL executive told Burgess, according to the Herald. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. [] NextAmid Connections to Ongoing Election Scandals, NextEra Pours Millions into Floridas 2022 []. It is a regulated monopoly which means that the. He said what he found was deeply disturbing. Dunn lost his 2014 re-election campaign by a 19-point margin to Chip Beeker, a catfish farmer who is still in office. Also, after reports that an outside FPL consultant had tailed a Florida Times-Union journalist who reported critically on the utility, Silagy sat down with reporters to deny that FPL had ever directed anyone to monitor him. Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Pitts in turn has accused Perkins of defamation and of leaking confidential records to the media. The records also demonstrate that secrecy is no substitute for sophistication or savvy: Some of Matrix's tricks did little to improve FPL's business prospects and, in fact, have now served to humiliate the utility like Silagy's use of a pseudonym email account belonging to a fictitious "Theodore Hayes" to communicate with Matrix employees (a tactic detailed in the leaked Matrix records that both FPL and Silagy himself confirmed took place). Maybe we should double down on energy-efficiency measures. DeSantis appointees also allowed FPL to pocket over $1 billion in corporate tax savings instead of passing those savings on to customers. Drop a line athmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter@mannahhorse. Feds Plan to Seize Russian Oligarch's Luxe Fisher Island Properties, Miami Canal Flooded With Turd Water From Contractor-Involved Pipe Break, Collapse of "Let's Go Brandon" Meme Coin Sparks Billion-Dollar Court Battle, Gator Gets in on the Action at Tampa Bay Horse Race, Readers Warn of Traffic, "Bloodsport" Driving After. So they opted instead for Mayor Stoddards electoral defeat and changing the makeup of the board, according to a 2018 memo from Dan Newman, a Matrix contractor who was similarly involved in the campaign against Rodrguez. Newman in his memo also took credit for a Miami Herald story about the allegation. 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. "We contributeto organizations where we're aligned on what the ultimate goal is, and from the standpoint of having the Senate at the time, who was being led by (Senate President) Wilton Simpson, continue to be able to be led by Wilton Simpson,I was a fan of that," FPL CEO Eric Silagy, recently told me and several other journalists with the Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight in a wide-ranging interview in Jacksonville. The effort to privatize Jacksonville's utility imploded in scandal and recrimination, prompting a two-year federal investigation that resulted in criminal charges against JEA's former CEO and CFO. Perkins and Pitts worked together for more than 25 years, expanding the firm into a national operation with dozens of clients in myriad industries. A dark money group associated with Matrix LLC mailed attack ads against South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard to area residents. Legislators pass legislation, she said. Florida Power & Light is pushing for it as Floridas biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the state. Artiles has been connected to Florida utilities, including NextEra and its subsidiary Florida Power and Light (FPL), for years. More: Solar advocates push for last-minute changes to net metering bills, Solar center: FPL blows up its last coal-fired power plant; announces plans for its newest solar center, Electric bill goes up: Your next Florida Power & Light electric bill is going way up. At the same time, getting to 100% elimination of greenhouse gas emissions for the energy sector is very hard to do with just renewables. The email was forwarded on to Silagy,though there is no indication the company seriously entertained Burgess' idea. FPL has long despised Klas' hard-hitting coverage of the company. Quick Links Start, Stop, Move Find My Account Number Pay Online Support Categories Billing & Payments My Account Start, Stop, Move Programs Business Customer Save Money & Energy Power Related Concerns Using FPL.com General Support Virtual Chat Most Common Links 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. What we dont think about is gas has to be brought up from the earth. 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. Burgess said he never pitched nor solicited feedback from FPL executives on any story or business venture, and FPL spokesperson Chris McGrath said acquiring a news organization would not have made sense as a business deal for FPL. Along with a private investigator, the group delved into Stoddards past for episodes to weaponize against him, such as a South Miami commissioners claim on Facebook that Stoddard had forcibly kissed her. The solar industry companies that make, sell, install, lease and maintain rooftop solar equipment is fighting back fiercely, suggesting that the bill will devastate its business. That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. Ricardo Rossello,. Matrix consultants had little regard for the professional press. The largest city served by the supplier is Jacksonville, but the company also provides electricity to 243 cities in Florida. Upon realizing the extent of Pittss shadow operations and abuses of power, we filed our lawsuit against Pitts and those few rogue employees.. 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. But FPL was fixated on JEA; buying it would lock Florida's entire East Coast into FPL's service territory, another bold expansion of FPL's power. These customers are a mix of 88.48% residential customer accounts, 11.29% commercial customers and 0.22% industrial properties. Even some environmental advocates say the change is fair and necessary because of the fast rate of rooftop solar development in that state. The companies that are doing the right thing still have those kinds of plants in their portfolio, specifically coal, but theyre working toward other alternatives, Hope said. 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. Skeptics of that plan notably included the Office of Public Counsel, thewatchdog group that represents consumers before the Public Service Commission butwas thought to have been more friendly to utility interests after the installation of a longtime industry lobbyist in 2021. The plant ispart of a fleet of new-era power generators often cited by the state's largest utility as jewels in itstransition to modern, clean energy. FPL: Plant has "best available" and "most advanced" emission controls, Data shows FPL plant is highly efficient compared to others, Find Energy, experts laud FPL for use of natural gas, FPL touts its 'gas guzzler' to 'hybrid' modernization strategy, Analyst: Utilities 'doing their part,' urgency of the moment requires more, Solar advocates push for last-minute changes to net metering bills, FPL blows up its last coal-fired power plant; announces plans for its newest solar center, Your next Florida Power & Light electric bill is going way up. A dark money non-profit called "Grow United" is at the center of the scandal, with records showing direct communication with and invoices to FPL. FPL has a long history of spending to campaign against Crist, spending up to $1 million against Crists bid for governor in 2006 after contributing $225,000 to Crists opponent in the Republican primary the largest donation FPL had ever made at the time. "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. At the Birmingham office where Pitts and the others had worked, Perkins said he found a backup server that appeared to have been beaten with something. Ten days later, Heffley wrote Holley again. That effort culminated with a Matrix employee signing an option agreement to purchase a controlling stake in The Capitolist in September 2019, the records show. Florida now has the second-largest solar workforce in the country about 11,000 direct jobs and 31,000 indirect ones, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. 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.. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. An Alabama governor the company worked for was convicted of federal felony corruption charges. As such, it would seem the FPL plantsinclusion on the list is unfair. All rights reserved. I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, but I also dont want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida.. Ketchum also reiterated that when he was named to the NextEra CEO role after Jim Robo stepped down, Silagy had committed to Ketchum that he would lead FPL for at least one more year. Money from the company also covertly secured favorable media coverage, investigations by the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald, the Guardian, NPR, and Floodlight found. Political editor Emily L. Mahoney will send you a rundown on local, state and national politics coverage every Thursday. And FPL is taking other public-relations hits that make the once-unstoppable company suddenly look more exposed:Earlier this month, for example,FPL uncharacteristically backed off a winter-hardeningproposal that critics alleged could have led to costly customer charges. Later that year, Floridianswould narrowly elect Ron DeSantis governor, the utility's preferred governing partner. Those dark-money groups were controlled by former Matrix employees, the records show. On the outskirts of Wellington, just before 20-Mile Bend, stands a behemoth of a power plant on a site as big as 166 football fields. for Floodlight and Annie Martin for Orlando Sentinel, he CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. He was previously the chief financial officer for NextEra Energy and FPL and led NextEra Energy Resources, the parent company's renewable resources arm, for eight years. And Burgess himself seemed to recognize it was an unlikely proposal, lamenting that "they are such douchebag newspaper people they added the poison pill to prevent ahostil [sic] takeover, even if it costs them hundreds of millions in stock value" (it's not clear in his email what the alleged"poison pill" is supposed to have been). Join the New Times community and help support View dataset here. 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. Records from the Florida Senate show that Florida Power & Light drafted the bill, and lobbyist John Holley delivered it to Bradley, R-Fleming Island, and Florida Power & Lights parent company followed up with a $10,000 contribution to her political committee. In 2019, when the electric utility industry was up in arms about a constitutional amendment to open up competition in Floridas energy market, a Matrix-linked non-profit poured more than $10m into groups fighting it. The company bought an independently owned coal-powered plant in Indiantown in 2016 with the intent to close it, which occurred last summer. But Dennis, in an interview last year, recalled receiving a job offer with remarkable similarities to the one outlined in the internal Matrix documents. The proposed legislation could seriously curtail that growth. Matrixs influence was felt on matters small and large, from Stoddards city of less than 12,000 to statewide fights over the Florida constitution. 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 . The state senator went on to lose re-election by six votes. You always have to keep in mind what matters most is the rate (of efficiency).. There has to be a transition. TALLAHASSEE Rooftop solar power generation in Florida is still a nascent industry, but Florida Power & Light, the nations largest power company, is pushing to hamstring it by writing and hand-delivering legislation the company asked state lawmakers to introduce, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald and Floodlight. But Shober saida missed opportunity is not factoring in methane emissions associated with the leaking of natural gas, from the production of the fuel to its use. 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. Former FPL senior executive Armando Pimentel was named as Silagy's replacement. The list consists of 83 coal-powered plants, 16 natural gas plants and one plant that uses petroleum coke as its primary fuel type. He has denied the allegations. Get the FPL Mobile App. In May 2018, FPL's sprawling utility empire laid claim to both boundaries,reaching a pinnacle of power and influence rare even among the mega-corporations that call Florida home. 1 factor to reduce greenhouse gases is the transition from coal to gas. All of that work was a closely held secret until recently. Overall, McGrath said the modernization improvements have made their plants 30% more efficient, saved customers more than $11 billion in fuel and kept 165 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted in the atmosphere. 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. A spokesperson for FPL said it stopped working with Canopy in late 2021. "The way I look at it is it's a little earlier than I would have hoped Eric would have wanted to do it.". Responding to dark money controversy, NextEra did internal investigation into FPL. 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. 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