OUC approves controversial clean-energy plan despite widespread community opposition
Orlando Utilities Commission leaders approved a controversial, clean-energy plan Tuesday, while acknowledging a failure to effectively communicate with the public on the utility’s broad plan to cut climate-warming carbon emissions.
Half of the six Orlando city council members and a state representative, as well many residents and environmentalists have expressed concerns that OUC is signaling via its energy plan that it will do away with incentives for residential, rooftop solar energy and will pull back on energy-efficiency measures that help customers reduce their power bills.
OUC leaders responded that their Electric Integrated Resource Plan, or EIRP, does not set a standard or goal for either rooftop solar or energy efficency, but adopts conservative figures for solar and efficiency in order to do calculations for a “macro level” clean-energy plan.
The core of the plan sets a path for ending the use of coal to generate electricity by 2027 and to have no net emissions of carbon pollution by 2050, though natural gas will still be used be used as fuel by that date. OUC is owned by the city and governed separately from city hall.
Under the plan, OUC’s landmark, power plants in east Orange County are to see a significant reduction of coal usage by 2025. After the use of coal ends in 2027, the two plants would be converted to run on natural gas but less efficiently than modern plants that use natural gas to generate electricity.
During a commission meeting, OUC leaders and board members essentially faulted members of the public for misinterpreting the EIRP even though the utility held many public workshops, surveys and other outreach
“To them, we are doing it in the dark. There’s no transparency. Their view is we are conniving something here that we won’t reveal,” said Larry Mills, an OUC board member. “They are not hearing what we are saying.”
At one point, OUC board president Cesar Calvet expressed puzzlement over the disconnect between the utility’s staff presentation of the EIRP and the response by the community, especially over efficiency and residential solar power.
“Where was it in the presentations and the workshops or whatever that people got that idea?” Calvet said.
OUC staff said repeatedly that the EIRP does not call for cuts in residential solar incentives nor with energy efficiency, and that changes to either will be done with additional public outreach.
That prompted Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a member of the OUC board to request of staff: “Could you say that one more time.”
OUC’s chief operating officer, Jan Aspuru, responded: “Any changes to those will be brought to the board in the future.”
Aspuru went on to say later that OUC was taking “bold steps and these are reasons we should be celebrating.”
“We don’t think, to our knowledge, that any utility in the state of Florida is taking these bold steps,” Aspuru said. “We really believe we are pushing the envelope here.”
But the utility’s assurances failed to win over several speakers.
Justin Vandenbroek, a solar-energy entrepreneur, said that while the EIRP does not specifically change incentives for residential solar, “it’s sending a clear market signal” that OUC is devaluing residential solar.
Susan Glickman, Florida director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, lauded Dyer for city government’s commitment to a clean-energy future without coal for generating electricity.
“But there is a serious and undeniable disconnect between his vision and the long-term energy plan, the EIRP,” Glickman said. “Some of the process has been illusive and sometimes deceptive.”
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
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