FPL (Florida) increases minimum monthly bill to $25 (plus taxes and fees)

[EVRider-FL]

The Florida legislature recently defeated a proposal that would have allowed Florida electric utilities to penalize homeowners who installed solar systems. However, when I got my latest bill from FPL (Florida Power & Light) today, it went up from $9.81 to $27.26, even though I didn't use any grid power. The bill contained the following explanation:

"A new minimum base bill of $25, which was approved by the Florida Public Service Commission, is now in effect for metered residential customers whose monthly base electric service costs fall below $25."

Previously, the base bill was $8.99 plus taxes and fees.

 

[RKCRLR]

This is an interesting way to "tax" residents with solar. I assume this applies to everyone regardless of they have solar, storage, etc. At the top level it seems fair since it applies to everyone. But realistically it impacts people that have solar since most people without solar will almost always use $25 or more per month but solar customers won't.

 

[sunwarriors]

Can they do this in CA? It's pretty obvious this is a way to get $$ from solar owners since non-solar owners will nearly always have bills greater than $25.

 

[dareed1]

Can they do this in CA? It's pretty obvious this is a way to get $$ from solar owners since non-solar owners will nearly always have bills greater than $25.

Why not? PG&E, SCE, and SDGE have a $10/month charge now.

 

[jgleigh]

Trico in AZ has a $20/month charge for all customers.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Can they do this in CA? It's pretty obvious this is a way to get $$ from solar owners since non-solar owners will nearly always have bills greater than $25.

It would be possible. The current Minimum Daily Charge is based on a multiple tariff components at 1 kWh/day. Changing this to 2 kWh/day would double it to ~$20/month or to 3 kWh/day would triple it to $30/month.

This would effectively only impact solar that are net producers and unoccupied accounts. There are a number of prolific posters here, including myself, that are in this camp, but my understanding is that most installations are undersized and have a postive annual true-up amount.

If your NEM balance at true-up is more than $234 than you would not be impacted by increasing MDC by 2x or more than $350 if the MDC was increased by 3x. So, I don't think that this would have a significant impact on revenue for grid maintenance. If the intent is to cover fixed costs then there needs to be a fixed charge that is applied to all customers that is non-bypassable.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

i'm in the camp that the power company should not owe you anything at true up... other then perhaps a tax credit for the donation, to accounts that receive charity.

 

[RichardCullip]

Can they do this in CA? It's pretty obvious this is a way to get $$ from solar owners since non-solar owners will nearly always have bills greater than $25.

As of June 1st SDG&E effectively changed the minimum amount I pay each month. Prior to June 1st the Non-bypassable charges (NBCs) were included in the minimum daily charge and I was paying ~$10 a month as I produce more than I use most every month. Now they treat NBCs as a separate line-item charge which is added to the minimum daily charge. While the additional dollar amount is still small (~$5.00 extra per month) it does show that a simple accounting change can effectively raise rates.

 

[ptdusn]

Trico in AZ has a $20/month charge for all customers.

SRP in Phoenix area has a minimum $32 service fee. Though there is a lawsuit fighting it going on right now.

 

[sunwarriors]

i'm in the camp that the power company should not owe you anything at true up... other then perhaps a tax credit for the donation, to accounts that receive charity.

Not sure why, but you do know that the power company is happy to sell your excess at peak rates to your neighbor (in SD, that's at $0.69/kWh (highest in the nation) for most non-solar people over baseline). It's not like these companies are considered friendly and great, nice folks really.

I don't see why a poorly managed power company (PG&E) which was already convicted of killing people from poorly managed equipment (think if a boat sank, people died, but the boat company were still paying massive bonuses for poor performance), we should be thanking and rewarding them?

I get not wanting to have anyone get rich from it, but these IOUs aren't your friends and certainly would take more from you if they could.

I suppose I hope the more off-grid tech/solutions pop up. As mentioned in that NEM3.0 debate thread/article, in some places, it's not even legal to go off-grid in some places. Consumers should be given options if power companies can choose to do whatever they please.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

Not sure why, but you do know that the power company is happy to sell your excess at peak rates to your neighbor (in SD, that's at $0.69/kWh (highest in the nation) for most non-solar people over baseline). It's not like these companies are considered friendly and great, nice folks really.

in no way should they be obligated to pay you 69 cents/kwh. this effectively raises rates on everyone else, which isn't fair either

I don't see why a poorly managed power company (PG&E) which was already convicted of killing people from poorly managed equipment (think if a boat sank, people died, but the boat company were still paying massive bonuses for poor performance), we should be thanking and rewarding them?

I get not wanting to have anyone get rich from it, but these IOUs aren't your friends and certainly would take more from you if they could.

I suppose I hope the more off-grid tech/solutions pop up. As mentioned in that NEM3.0 debate thread/article, in some places, it's not even legal to go off-grid in some places. Consumers should be given options if power companies can choose to do whatever they please.

having to pay a access fee to use the grid as your battery is fair, i wouldn't want to lose this.

i was backfeeding the other day when price of wholesale electric was $1/kwh, not the usual 2-5 cents/kwh. so sometimes the utility benefits.

 

[jgleigh]

SRP in Phoenix area has a minimum $32 service fee. Though there is a lawsuit fighting it going on right now.

Quite the racket these utilities have going.

 

[sunwarriors]

in no way should they be obligated to pay you 69 cents/kwh. this effectively raises rates on everyone else, which isn't fair either

The thing is if you are a net exporter, they DON'T pay you 69 cents/kWh. They pay you like 2-3 cents for any extra. You can at best, zero out your own bill, but the utlitity will continue to sell your power at peak times to your neighbors without solar at 69 cents/kWh.

My point is still that the utility isn't our friends and why should it be that one sided all in their benefit?

I still much rather have them broken up and go local and non-profit. I don't think it can be much worst with how they have been managed. Sempra which owns SDG&E had like a 10 bil profit last year. I think the SDG&E was like 900 million or so. That could help a lot of folks have lower energy rates.

 

[miimura]

Can they do this in CA? It's pretty obvious this is a way to get $$ from solar owners since non-solar owners will nearly always have bills greater than $25.

They have already done it. The minimum charges used to be ~$5/mo and they were increased to ~$10/mo. I don't recall exactly when, but it was sometime in the teens - like 2015-2017. I would not be at all surprised if they doubled it again to ~$20/mo.

 

[SteveV]

i'm in the camp that the power company should not owe you anything at true up... other then perhaps a tax credit for the donation, to accounts that receive charity.

They should't be passing on any additional cost to non-solar producing consumers since they bear no cost for the power I generate for them. They could even use my batteries so that non-solar customers wouldn't suffer blackouts during peak use times. If I as private owner of an energy production system can improve the grid in my community at my expense, why wouldn't I get paid back for my investment? Not a mark-up or some crazy profit margin but at the same rate they would charge anyone else. FPL's net income in 2021 was $3.573 billion. Up 10% over 2020. Gimme a break!

 

[Zero Putz]

The Florida legislature recently defeated a proposal that would have allowed Florida electric utilities to penalize homeowners who installed solar systems. However, when I got my latest bill from FPL (Florida Power & Light) today, it went up from $9.81 to $27.26, even though I didn't use any grid power. The bill contained the following explanation:

"A new minimum base bill of $25, which was approved by the Florida Public Service Commission, is now in effect for metered residential customers whose monthly base electric service costs fall below $25."

Previously, the base bill was $8.99 plus taxes and fees.

I know it's such bullshit, what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it?

 

[Zero Putz]

The Florida legislature recently defeated a proposal that would have allowed Florida electric utilities to penalize homeowners who installed solar systems. However, when I got my latest bill from FPL (Florida Power & Light) today, it went up from $9.81 to $27.26, even though I didn't use any grid power. The bill contained the following explanation:

"A new minimum base bill of $25, which was approved by the Florida Public Service Commission, is now in effect for metered residential customers whose monthly base electric service costs fall below $25."

Previously, the base bill was $8.99 plus taxes and fees.

I know it's such bullshit, what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it?

This is an interesting way to "tax" residents with solar. I assume this applies to everyone regardless of they have solar, storage, etc. At the top level it seems fair since it applies to everyone. But realistically it impacts people that have solar since most people without solar will almost always use $25 or more per month but solar customers won't.

We need to band together and do something about this, it's not that we do not use a minimum amount of power. We have paid a lot of money to produce power for them, and this is the thanks we get? It's TOTAL BS!!!

 

[Zero Putz]

They should't be passing on any additional cost to non-solar producing consumers since they bear no cost for the power I generate for them. They could even use my batteries so that non-solar customers wouldn't suffer blackouts during peak use times. If I as private owner of an energy production system can improve the grid in my community at my expense, why wouldn't I get paid back for my investment? Not a mark-up or some crazy profit margin but at the same rate they would charge anyone else. FPL's net income in 2021 was $3.573 billion. Up 10% over 2020. Gimme a break!

Absolutely correct!

 

[Pearl1!]

Does anyone on FPL net metering experience this?

Mimimum $25 = $9.48 (base energy charge) + $15.52 (minimum base bill charge), where does the money go? the $15.52. FPL profit or do you get some kind of credit.

Sounds like there is no incentive to be net zero. You're gifting FPL $186.24/yr. If COG is $.02, you need 9.3 kWh in credits to break even.

Thanks Florida Legislature.

 

[Jeremy3292]

Honestly, I think it’s pretty fair. We have a minimum $30 monthly bill here in Upstate SC with Duke Energy. The basic “facilities fee” is usually around $15 or so for everyone, so in reality they’re charging you $15 more to support the grid since you are paying $0 in per kWh charges (that also pay for the grid). It’s similar to not buying gas and thus paying no gas tax bc you drive an EV. You still have to support the infrastructure like every other citizen.

Additionally, regardless of whether you use their power or not, the power company still has to service your address. You are NOT off the grid; you are still connected to their service. Therefore, you must support capital investments and the cost of them providing your address with service same as everyone else. Your solar benefit lies in not having to purchase and pay for power from them.

We can quibble about what that amounts to and what the minimum bill should be, but at the end of the day I think it’s fair on principle. Just my 2 cents.