The warm light races across a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. This story is a collaboration with Floodlight. That cost is based on the avoided cost that the utility would have incurred if it were to install a comparable system. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. Source: Orlando Sentinel Florida Power & Light execs worked closely with consultants behind 'ghost' candidate scheme, records reveal | Special Report By JASON GARCIA and ANNIE MARTIN ORLANDO SENTINEL | DEC 02, 2021 AT 9:46 AM Top executives at utility giant Florida Power & Light worked closely with the political consultants who orchestrated a scheme to promote spoiler candidates in three . 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. While Matrix operatives quietly pulled strings for FPL, strife within their own firm boiled over. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. 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. 'Off-the-books political strategy':FPL consultants secretly took command, control of Florida news website, reports say, Nate Monroe:Surveillance records at the heart of a tangled mess between FPL and a former consultant. In one case, at the suggestion of Silagy, FPL's CEO, Burgess included in a newsletter a photoshopped image of the Herald's Tallahassee bureau chief, Mary Ellen Klas, as a pauper begging for money. A local law firm and the company that owned the coal plant used the charity to pay the representative. On Oct. 8, Bradleys legislative aide Katie Heffley emailed Holley with the subject line: Net Metering Bill., Good afternoon, Hope youre doing well, she said. Bob Self/Florida Times-Union. The non-profit, called Broken Promises, first donated the funds to a political committee called Consumers for Energy Fairness. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. The company anticipates the panels will be able to generate 11,657 megawatts. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. 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. One of Matrixs oldest clients is Alabama Power, which employed Perkins personal consulting firm as early as 1999. You always have to keep in mind what matters most is the rate (of efficiency).. 0:00. Inat least one case, they had this Times-Union columnist surveilled, according to the secret records. Under Floridas current arrangement, homes and businesses that generate less than 2 megawatts of solar power can sell the excess back to their utility in exchange for a bill credit of 11 cents per kWh. The funds supported a total of five spoiler candidates in state senate and county commission races in 2018 and 2020, as well as efforts to foil a ballot initiative that would have deregulated Florida's energy market. 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. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. But wherever the pair went, indictments often followed. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. What people may not realize is that public opinion is very much in our favor, said Bryan Jacob of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. More recently, the company hired an outside law firm to look more broadly at the company's actions. Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. So far, there have been two criminal investigations into the campaign against Rodrguez and another Democratic state senate candidate, leading to charges against five people, though authorities have not accused Matrix or FPL of wrongdoing. He added that the company would soon challenge the complaint and call for its dismissal. Energy poles by Florida Power and Light from Turkey Point nuclear generating station in Miami, Florida. FPL has been ensnaredin public scandal over aggressive political tactics that Florida newspapers have laid bare since late last year. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants. FPL has repeatedly denied any involvement in the "ghost candidate" controversy stemming from the 2020 election cycle, but Matrix records show the company's consultants were deeply involved. Thats not where the story ends, however, or the whole picture. This plant has been part of the solution.. You gotta bow down and kiss the ring.. These email records were provided to the Times/Herald and Floodlight by the Energy & Policy Institute, a watchdog organization that works to counter misinformation about renewable energy. The majority of Florida Power & Light (FPL) contributions have been to the Florida Republican Party, GOP committees and candidates, and political committees associated with corporate special interests. 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. Jennifer Bradley to sponsor its top-priority bill: legislation that would hobble rooftop solar by preventing homeowners and businesses from offsetting their costs by selling excess power back to the company, an arrangement known as net metering. FPL has already passed the $5.1 million total amount it spent in the 2020 cycle. According to FPL, the plant also has the best available and most advanced emission-control equipment.. 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. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reported this story with Mario Ariza of Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. And then apparently, somewhere along the way, Jeff and Joe got sideways, Silagy said. Ricardo Rossello, governor of Puerto Rico, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, as power was being restored to a neighborhood in February 2018, five months after Hurricane Irma struck the area. The company is making renewable energy investments, including: Patino-Echeverri said the utility industry as a whole is making strides to make its plants more efficient. For years, Florida Power & Light has been one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns. 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. NPR and Floodlight reported the same consulting firm did work in Alabama for that state's dominant energy utility, Alabama Power, and funneled money to news sites there that reported negatively on the utility's critics and regulators. While the West County Energy Center ranked 29th on this list for emitting more than 7.3 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide in 2020, equivalent to emissions from nearly 1.6 million passenger cars, FPL is also correct when it says the facilityis among the most efficient power plants in the country. Alissa Jean Schafer is a research and communications specialist at the Energy and Policy Institute. From the beginning, Matrix showed no aversion to unsavory political tactics. The utility company also contributes to many Democrats and to the Florida Democratic Party. The commission held a workshop, which drew 16,000 messages from solar advocates urging it to leave the net metering program alone. Burning natural gas results in about half of the carbon dioxide emissions of burning coal, which also releases harmful metals and gases into the environment. An analyst at Seaport Global, a capital-markets firm, said recent reporting on FPL has "made us reassess FPL's risks" and that the research firm has "grown uncomfortable" with the "growing media scrutiny of FPLs lobbying practices against distributed solar and retail choice (deregulation), among others. The issue extends to several states. With two months until voters elect the next Florida Governor, 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. The company bought an independently owned coal-powered plant in Indiantown in 2016 with the intent to close it, which occurred last summer. From a public perception, maybe there is value in highlighting where our emissions come from, Patino-Echeverri said. Drop a line [email protected], call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter@mannahhorse. FPL did not respond to requests for comment by deadline. To date, no FPL employees have been charged with any crimes. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants bypassing FPL and its monopoly on electricity. And the job was to come with one key hitch: To accept it, Dennis would have to leave his council position. Florida Power & Light, one of the largest utilities in the country, abruptly announced the retirement of its chief executive after a tenure marked by strong financial returns, moves toward. An FPL spokesman, nonetheless, took issue with the Find Energy reportciting concerns over a general legal disclaimer on the website and the use of a misleading statistic of overall emissions rather than the emissions rate. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. Ive also.ccd Gera Peoples on this note. 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. To work around the independent, traditional media, former Matrix employees took a more direct route to influence the public narrative about Florida Power & Light. Rodrguez was ousted from office in the next election. The state senator went on to lose re-election by six votes. One industry consulting firm has influenced politics across Florida, Alabama and at least six other states. In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics, She was an ABC News producer. 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 ghostcandidate controversy set off a wide-ranging criminal investigation by prosecutors in Miami, whosecured a guilty pleafrom the independent candidate in District 37 andfiled felony charges against Frank Artiles, a former Republican lawmaker accused of bribing the candidate to run. Matrix consultants had little regard for the professional press. Hundreds of pages of internal documents which are only coming to light now because Matrixs founders are locked in an epic feud detail the firms secret work to help power companies like FPL protect their profits and fight the transition to cleaner forms of energy. 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." Reporting, primarily by the Orlando Sentinel, showed spoiler candidates in three state Senate races in 2020 were propped up by at least a half-million dollars from dark-money groups in an effort to help damage the Democrats in those races and help Republicans control the chamber. The company's owner, Joe Perkins, and its former CEO, Jeff Pitts, parted ways in early 2021, becoming bitter enemies locked in legal battles in courtrooms in Alabama and Jacksonville. 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. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. Before the prospect of JEA had even been formally proposed, Matrix employees were planting seeds intended to underminepublic confidence in the Jacksonville agency, potentially as early as 2017. 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.. We're advancing solar energy in Florida and you can too with our solar programs. Emails show that Bradleys staff followed up with Florida Power & Light after that discussion. Pairing solar energy centers with battery storage, including the worlds largest battery in Manatee County. The Find Energy report relied on data that is submitted by power companies to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Customers who are already using rooftop solar power before 2023 would be grandfathered in and keep their previous compensation rates for 10 years. 3:12. . An Alabama governor the company worked for was convicted of federal felony corruption charges. 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. That decision catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. The job was to be with a shell nonprofit created by Matrix employees that supported marijuana decriminalization and, on its face, had no connection to FPL. In each of those cases, Matrix was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable power. A spokesperson for FPL said it stopped working with Canopy in late 2021. Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. 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). All rights reserved. "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. 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 . He added thatcarbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural gas, which isa fossil fuel, andis being created whether theyre scrubbing or storing it.. Too, FPL has not set a goal to reduce its emissions to zero because we believe in setting measurable and achievable goals, McGrath said. Currently, 5,779,202 consumers receive their electricity from the company. They proposed offering a job to Garrett Dennis, a member of the Jacksonville City Council who had been outspoken against selling JEA. FPLs consultants used similar spoiler candidate tactics in the 2020 election cycle in three senate races throughout the state. While the report contemplates the impact of fracking and transporting natural gas, it is not quantified. Switching from oil or coal to natural gas is a very important step, but thats not enough, she said, adding that carbon capture, utilization and storage technology must be considerationsto further reduce emissions. Artiles pleaded not guilty. FPL has long despised Klas' hard-hitting coverage of the company. Methane is 25 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. 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. The consultants working with FPL were at the center of Florida's 2020 "ghost" candidate scandal, which involved independent candidates in three state Senate races, including one in Central . Silagy is to be replaced by Armando Pimentel, a former senior executive at NextEra Energy. Theres no time and its urgent, she said. Thats a trend nationwide, as power company profits are threatened by the rise of distributed renewable energy a technology which scientists say is essential to limiting the pollution that causes the climate crisis. In 2018, Perkins Communications received at least $1.49m from Alabama Power, a leaked contract shows. 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