GRU reduces net-metering rates for customers with solar power systems despite push-back from public

Members of the public stand in line to comment on a proposal to reduce net-metering rates for solar customers

Updated on April 20 to correct a typographical error.

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The last meeting of the current GRU Authority was held on April 17, with Member James Coats absent. The resignations submitted by the current members of the board will be effective on May 11 or 12, and the Governor is expected to appoint a new board before the next meeting.

Chair Craig Carter began by saying that the room was full (and people were in an overflow area) because people had learned that the Authority was planning to address solar net-metering, the practice of paying owners of solar power systems for any excess power produced. He said, “Anybody that has solar now, we’re not changing it. We’re not changing anybody that’s in permitting now.”

Carter said that solar owners currently “use GRU as a battery,” and with 1,500 solar customers, “as it gets more and more, it affects our generation – there’s a cost to it. So even the poorest person in this city is offsetting and subsidizing solar, to some extent.” He said the plan was to pay fuel adjustment rates to future solar customers: “We’re not eliminating net-metering. That is a false statement. We’re changing how we’re going to compensate for the solar, and that’s something that we should do.”

GRU CEO/GM Tony Cunningham said the purpose of the agenda items that evening was to begin making decisions that will affect the budget, which needs to be approved by July 1.

Questions for the Attorney General

Assistant City Attorney Bianca Lherisson, who sits on the dais at GRU Authority meetings with the Authority’s interim attorney Scott Walker, said her office is still waiting on a response to the request the Authority had submitted to the Attorney General about whether they can legally transfer funds to the City without taking action to ensure that the City spends it based on pecuniary factors.

Lherisson suggested asking an additional question of the Attorney General: Does the Authority, under the new bill, have the right to altogether refuse to authorize the General Fund Transfer? And if so, do they have to provide a justification, or is that refusal by right?

Lherisson said her office believes that the answer to the question is that the Authority has the right to refuse to authorize any General Fund Transfer at all, without providing any justification. She asked the board for authorization to send the question to the Attorney General.

Member Robert Karow made a motion to submit the additional question to the Attorney General.

Carter: “You know how I feel about the transfer. I’m fine where it’s at, and I think we need to move on.”

Carter objected to the part of the question about refusing the transfer without justification: “I don’t think you run any business without justification… You know how I feel about the transfer. I’m fine where it’s at, and I think we need to move on. Telling the City what they can do with the money – that’s not our job. Our job is to run this utility. If we give them $100 million and they want to go burn it on fire, I don’t care. I mean, I do, but it’s not my job to leash them.”

Karow responded that the utility has $1.9 billion in debt, “and any justification would be that we’re trying to take care of business here and pay off debt and reduce rates.”

Member Eric Lawson seconded the motion, and the vote was 2-1, with Carter in dissent. Carter said, “It had to be unanimous, so it dies.”

Net-metering for solar customers

Before the presentation on net-metering for solar customers, Carter asked for a count of how many members of the public wanted to speak; the answer was that there were 30 or 35 people, so he limited comments to one minute instead of the usual three minutes. 

The resolution before the board was that the current net-metering ordinance would no longer apply, customers who submit a Letter of Intent to GRU to construct a solar power system by April 17 will be compensated the same as current customers, and anyone who submits a Letter of Intent after April 17 will receive GRU’s then-current fuel adjustment rate for each kilowatt-hour provided to GRU’s distribution system within the billing period.

History of net-metering

The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA), enacted in 1978 in response to the 1973 energy crisis, required utilities to purchase any generation from small renewable generators or co-generators. Solar was very expensive at the time, so there weren’t many renewable generators. GRU offered to pay its avoided cost for excess solar generation and implemented the solar Feed-in Tariff program in 2009. Under the Feed-in Tariff program, solar power systems inject energy directly into GRU’s distribution system, and the injected energy does not offset the load; that program ended in 2014. 

In 2014, GRU began offering net-metering, which was required by the Florida legislature in 2009; investor-owned utilities are required to offer full-retail net-metering, but municipal utilities and cooperatives are not required to do that. 

Net-metering calculates the difference between how much a customer pulls from the grid and how much is pushed onto the grid; in this way, GRU acts as both a reliable utility and a free battery. The credits are rolled over from month to month, and any positive balance at the end of the year is paid at GRU’s avoided cost, which was a little over five cents last year; the fuel adjustment rate is currently 3.5 cents but can change at the direction of the CEO/GM of GRU, based on fuel prices.

Jamie Verschage, Director of Utilities Planning, said that as solar power systems have become less expensive, participation in these programs has increased to levels “that are starting to disrupt the equity between customers that have solar and customers that don’t have solar” because fixed costs are shifted to customers who don’t have solar power systems. 

Verschage said that energy pushed onto the grid often has less value to the utility than the energy pulled from the grid. For example, he said that last week, when the weather was mild, GRU could purchase power for about $20/MWh, but net-metering customers were receiving a credit of about $120/MWh. Given the recent increase in net-metering applications, Verschage said, “this is just not financially sustainable in the long term.”

Verschage said the investor-owned utilities like FPL are required to pay the retail rate for excess energy, but JEA, a municipal utility like GRU, pays the fuel rate, which is what he was recommending to the Authority. He said that Clay Electric, a cooperative, pays a wholesale rate for excess energy. When JEA changed to the fuel rate in 2018, they grandfathered in existing customer for 20 years and reportedly did not see a significant drop-off in new applications. They faced a lawsuit, but it was dismissed for lack of standing.

Verschage recommended that all current customers be grandfathered at their current rates and said GRU would incur a cost of about $65,000 to make needed changes to its billing system, which is projected to be offset by savings within six months.

Motion

Karow made a motion to approve the resolution, and Lawson seconded the motion. 

29 members of the public spoke against the motion, with many asking the board to vote down the motion or at least delay a vote until a new board is appointed. Nobody spoke in favor of the motion.

After public comment, Lawson and Karow said they didn’t have any questions. Carter said GRU cannot afford to continue being a battery for solar customers. He continued, “People said it’s not about the money, but that’s all we heard – ‘I would not do it if it wasn’t for the money.’… I am all for solar; I’m just not for the way we’re paying it. So if it’s not about the money, why are you so upset at the way we’re paying it?”

The board voted unanimously to adopt the resolution. 

  • Somebody owns Craig Carter, and it’s not the GRU utility customers.

    • I don’t see the problem here!!! After all we call Gainesville “Tree City USA” yet we cut down trees and burn them to make power. Listen my sheeple just do as you are told and continue to keep us in power so we can continue to keep giving you what we see fit.

    • Right! Carter has been an unmitigated disaster! He’s not in it for GRU’s welfare, he’s made conflicted promises to someone. Maybe Queen P or Po Boy? Hope he doesn’t come back. He’s the same one that said: “I’ll go $750” (million) at a public comm meeting with GREC watching on TV when we had already offered $675. Yep, then ccom went up to $750 the next week and bought it. No reason to save $75 million or stop blindly giving ccom radicals a million dollars to spend on putting sanitary napkins in all men’s restrooms or paying the straw patrol or attract more homeless! Great job Mr carter. We hope your last meeting has transpired.

  • Why was this item even on the agenda, since it was the current board’s last meeting? Don’t they have more important things to do, ie like preparing the budget, than to rile up the opposition?

      • This action will have little impact on next year’s budget, since they are not changing the rate for existing systems. For a board that has done very little during the short time of their existence, I just think it’s odd that this was so important that it was their final act.

  • Did they say anything about what will happen when a house with a grandfathered full rate solar system is sold? Does the system go to the ‘fuel rate’?

    • The account would become a new account (new owners) and subject to the then current rules, not grandfathered.

  • Any question that Alachua County and City of Gainesville slipped their wolves in sheep’s clothing onto the GRU Authority, past the State of Florida watchdogs? What a joke! The current GRU Authority is owned by the Democratic Party of AC! The public continues to get reamed!

    Keep your solar power, GRU Authority/City of Gainesville/Alachua County Commissioners, are not interested YOU saving money with your solar panels! You saving money doesn’t pay for more votes from Government Funding Slaves, nor swampland from rich Democratic Donors!

    Shouldn’t the AC BOCC and COG CC be encouraging users to reduce their dirty energy use? Nope, bills gotta be paid, and the dupes must pay!

    • As far as Conspiracy theories go, this one is pretty weak. Perhaps a Civic class would be helpful? Alachua County has no say in GRU or this Board. Every member that the governor appointed (without understanding the requirements, so they all have to resign) is a Republican. Perhaps you should stick to the moon landing being a hoax.

      • Keep believing that!

        AC BOCC and GNV CC are controlled by the same master as F Joe Biden! Maybe you should take a class on how politics really works!

      • Is that why the Gru taxslaves in the county continues to pay a bogus surcharge? You can thank the woke AC Commission for bending us over on that deal.

  • As one of the early adopters of home based solar pv ( but missed out on the profitable feed in tariff, which went to out of area large companies, and NOT to GRU customers), I feel GRU needs to do MORE to encourage excess roof top solar generation.

    GRU seems eager to offer contracts to purchase solar energy from OUTSIDE providers, as long as they profit from it. But, local customers who could produce more power from a solar array are dissuaded from larger systems because GRU will now only pay wholesale rates for excess production, and their new plan pays even less.

    So, in my case, what happens is that in December, I shut off my PV system in order to use up any remaining Kwh credits I have, rather than to sell them to GRU for $.02 Kwh, which they then sell for more than 8 times the price.

    And, throughout the year, I have to pay a “service charge” for being connected to the grid.

    I already have 3 Tesla batteries in my system ( first in the GRU service area) and a 20Kw whole house generator. If the service charge gets much higher, I will add 2 more batteries, and tell GRU to eff off and remove their unsightly lines, and poles from MY property.

    AND, btw, I have a Tesla Model 3 and pay NOTHING to charge it, except on long trips.

    Sure, I spent money on this, and I do not consider myself wealthy, just thrifty. GRU needs to realize there are many of us who can LEAVE their network, instead of supporting it.

    • l think you are more agenda driven than by economics. Your actual costs to have the generating capacity (especially without any subsidies which taxpayers end up paying for) takes many years if ever to even come close to making you thrifty. The cost associated with purchasing, installing all the necessary equipment and maintenance is extremely high. If it was as “thrifty “ as you claim everyone would be doing it. Also it is a lie for people to say that solar is environmentally sound. It does way more damaging than traditional generation with all things considered. When something goes wrong and you told “GRU to eff off” you will have to fix it yourself and you will have to find someone else to whine and complain to. If you are so anti-GRU then cut off your water, gas and sewer while you’re at it, then you will truly be off grid. Oh by the way good luck with any future permits and trying to sell your property.

      • First solar project done in 2006, DHW. It has required zero dollars in upkeep. It paid for itself 8 years ago. First solar panels in 2010. Only has required cleaning the panels twice a year, calculated to have paid for itself 2 years ago. Tesla batteries 5 years ago. Zero upkeep. Of course the batteries are not a dollar saver, but do allow the solar panels to work if there is a grid outage. Second PV system in 2019. Just to add to the capacity. Self installed, with permits. 5 year payback. Oh, I am on well, and septic.

        More people do not do solar because it requires you to own the house, and have a good site. AND, only works if you do not use borrowed money.

    • You take yourself WAY too seriously if you think that you have the ability to remove gru lines and poles from your property, you don’t wield that kind of power… literally!! They have an easement that you don’t have the ability to do dam thing about!
      The only thing that you have the power to do about gru is to sell your home and move out of their service area!

      • No, they do not have an easement. It would be on the title abstract. Their lines can be removed just like the phone lines were.

        • Well, what are you waiting for? Have them removed and send in pics of before and after! Typing is easy, provide us with proof of action!

    • GRU should pay the wholesale rate for excess solar, or less. Less would make up for the extra labor and costs spent to make you “feel better”. BTW you and your so called green approach is not helping the environment one whit.

      • Not done for environmental reason at all. Just financial. Can’t argue against the $$.

        $228 paid to GRU in 2023. @ $ 3500 in 2010 ( last year before solar pv) Current rates would likely be twice that.

        4

    • Likewise.
      Also not wealthy, just frugal, and tired of paying the exorbitant prices for power from GRU.

      Also added Tesla power walls to offset the costs of gas/electric powered generators, and the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning from the drag arounds.

      Shame on this Republican appointed board that’s more concerned about the big guy than the smallER consumer.

  • About time, that was a burden for every GRU customer except the solar customer. It was ridiculous. Who’s pocket got lined with this corrupt solar deal?

  • They have to pay roof monkeys to clean the pollen and mildew off the panels, too 🤑. We need a city program to pay for that, get the local activists organized and change their signs!
    👹🤡🙃

  • It is much more painful for gov’t to reduce incentives than to avoid them in the first place. I’m in favor of solar for those who are willing to pay for solar, but the arrangement that GRU had, to pay top dollar for solar generated power, was not equitable for the non-solar customers.

    Paying the same rate for solar power generated by customers as customers pay for power sounds equitable, but those customers avoided the cost of a battery bank by feeding into GRU. That’s an incredibly significant part of the cost of solar power. I didn’t realize this until we decided to invest in solar ourselves. The batteries are terribly expensive.

    So GRU was, in this arrangement, buying high and selling low. They were not recouping the cost of accepting/storing the power. AND the solar customers received power at night and on cloudy days when their solar panels couldn’t produce any power. So they got all the benefit without risk or sacrifice. GRU covered the risk.

    GRU customers without solar panels have been subsidizing GRU customers with solar panels. An unintended consequence of bad policy.

    Another hole in the GRU money bag. The GRU Authority was just trying to plug that significant hole so as not to have as much money draining away.

  • It will be hard to tear down the old system, Politicians like money coming in, regardless of how it is being used, (as long as they have it to use.) They do not like to see money going out, especially for the “undeserving public use”, same old status quo.

  • The local “climate cult” never ceases to provide free entertainment!

    It must be a miserable existence to think each and every day the world is ending. Perhaps a Prozac is the answer?

  • Net metering is a wealth transfer from the poor and working classes to those affluent enough to install solar. The utility is forced to buy power it doesn’t need or want from solar producers when it’s convenient for the solar owner and provide constant backup availability when the solar owner needs it. Solar installations do not save any fossil fuel because they only duplicate power that must always be available to stabilize the grid. These are facts, whether you like hearing them or not. I don’t blame people for taking advantage of the system and installing solar, but don’t kid yourself about the “net” results.

    • Actually GRU is entering contracts obligating itself to purchase large amounts of solar power. I have not heard of these companies doing battery storage as part of the deal.

      • GRU is considering the solar power purchase for two reasons. The liberal elitist (Wendy)false narratives and because GRU can’t afford to build its own generation because the same people drove it into the ground and want everyone one else to pay for it. The “Wendy’s” of the world will lie and tell people how great they and solar power is. But the truth is they are not. Solar would be a long way off without the subsidies and incentives paid for by our tax dollars. Not to mention the GLOBAL environmental damages. Solar power is not as reliable or economical as traditional generation, nor is it any more environmentally friendly.

  • No mention of investigating a “solar feed-in” tariff enjoyed by a former mayor and her friends that is said to cost GRU ratepayers $6 million per year for 20 years. Federal tax breaks and other favors were gifted as well. Mr. Walker is representing the Authority and GRU. Why is a conflicted Assistant City Attorney at the table and talking trash? Mr. Nee et al is waging full scale legal and asymmetrical war on GRU Ratepayers at GRU RATEPAYER EXPENSE! The City will continue to burn through millions per month until a fully functioning Authority is installed. GRU is like a driverless auto heading toward a financial cliff.

    • Yep , and to think of the audacity of the City of Gainesville leadership advocating a hostile takeover of GRU , the very entity they drove into the ground financially. Don’t vote for crime boss Arreola. And a Lame Duck , washed up, advisory board that was hijacked by a past , clueless city commissioner making a last minute favor to some yet to be exposed group. Wow , can’t get much worse in wokesville.

  • Obstacle with solar & wind:

    My understanding:

    Because solar & wind power are intermittent, the fuel-based systems (coal, gas, etc) must still be sized for peak demand.

    The main savings to the utility from solar or wind is that less fuel is burned. They still must have enough fuel-based capacity and personnel on hand.

    Therefore it probably makes sense for a utility to rebate only the fuel adjustment when customers sell solar power back to the grid.

    If solar continues to drop in price, it may still make financial sense – even without implicit subsidies.

  • > For example, he said that last week, when the weather was mild, GRU could purchase power for about $20/MWh, but net-metering customers were receiving a credit of about $120/MWh. Given the recent increase in net-metering applications, Verschage said, “this is just not financially sustainable in the long term.”

    Why is this controversial?

    Why should non-solar customers subsidize solar customers getting 6x credits vs the actual cost of energy.

    Existing customers should be thankful they are getting grandfathered.

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