Duke Energy Florida announced it completed construction of the Fort Green Renewable Energy Center, a 74.9 MW facility that will serve the utility’s Clean Energy Connection plan, which allows Duke customers to opt-in to sourcing a designated amount of capacity from the project on their monthly bill.
The facility was built on about 500 acres of land, consisting of 265,000 panels mounted on a fixed-tilt racking system. It is expected to produce enough power for roughly 23,000 homes at peak energy production.
Residents and small/medium businesses may join its new Clean Energy Connection “community” solar program. Applicants will be randomly selected to become subscribers to solar energy produced by the utility’s PV.
Under the program, customers can subscribe to kilowatt blocks of power, which are charged at $8.35/kW. The utility said a customer with an average usage of 1,000kWh a month could subscribe to about 5kW to cover their energy needs.
The bill credit rate tied to the solar production of a customer’s kW “block” will be $0.04/kWh for the first 36 months of the program, and then starting with the 37th month of continuous enrollment, the bill credit rate increases by 1.5% each year. This bill credit amount varies each month with the actual solar energy produced, meaning customer savings is tied to the successful production of the utility-owned solar facility.
Community solar offers an option to be connected with a carbon-free energy source for those who do not have a suitable roof space for PV. Generally, community solar projects are smaller than utility-scale plants, and are attached at the local distribution level, rather than to large-scale high voltage transmission infrastructure. This program, the Clean Energy Connection, supports the development and construction of Duke Energy Florida-owned solar, said the utility.
“Community solar” appears to be broadly defined in this instance, where the utility company remains sole owner-operator of the assets. Rocky Mountain Institute offers a framework for the next generation of community solar projects that would be designed to support resilience and cost savings for community stakeholders.
The program sets aside 26 MW for income-qualified customers who participate in government subsidy programs or Duke Energy’s low-income energy efficiency program, Neighborhood Energy Saver. For these customers, the fixed monthly $9.03 credit per kW subscribed will always be higher than the fixed monthly $8.35 subscription fee per kW subscribed. The average subscription amount for income-qualified customers (5 kW) results in approximately $42/year in bill savings, said Duke.
Duke said it anticipates the Clean Energy Connection program to be allocated as follows: 486.85 MW to large commercial and industrial customers, 74.9 MW to local government customers, 161.25 MW to residential and small business customers and 26 MW to low-income customers. Each MW represents electrical power equal to 1 million watts, referring to the output capacity of the solar facility.
Duke Energy Florida has invested more than $2 billion in solar and expects to have 1.5GW of emission-free generation and 5 million PV modules installed by 2024. Currently, the company has over 400MW of solar assets in operation.
“Bringing cleaner resources onto the grid is important to our customers and our company,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida president. “By subscribing to the Clean Energy Connection program and supporting solar sites like this one, our customers are joining a community that is helping drive Florida to a cleaner energy future.”
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Ryan,
Any chance you could get info from Duke regarding how many customers signed up as non-qualified and qualified (low-income) subscribers? And what the average power block in kiloWatts amounts to?
The monthly credit for 5 power blocks of 1kW each, or 5kW total offsetting a $150/month bill per their calculator means the max energy credit you can get will be $40.00 for up to 1,000 kWh monthly usage. But after subtracting the $41.75/mo subscription fee, you will LOSE MONEY until year Six.
Sadly, the NET CREDIT after total subscription fees of: $8 35/mo x 5 = $41.75/mo is subtracted from $0.04/kWh x 1,000 kWh = $40.00, becomes a LOSS of $1.75/mo or $21.00/year until year four when a 1.5% credit increase to $40.60/yr reduces the LOSS to $1.15/month or $13.80/yr until year five when you get S41.21/mo, LOSING just $0.54/month or $6.48/yr for a total five year LOSS totaling: $83.28 before FINALLY earning a measly NET credit of $0.077/month or 93-Cents/yr in year six and a whopping 70-Cents/month NET credit in year seven or $8.40/yr savings. PITIFUL!
Worse, you don’t pay back your cumulative loss of $83.28 with “savings” until year 16!
The puny 4-Cents/kWh credit rate amounts to offsetting JUST the fuel charge pass-through at current rates. Energy usage charge and utility fees and taxes amount to four times what the 4-Cents/kWh credit amounts to.
The problem is you are charged $41.75/month in sunscriber fees or $0.04175/kWh to participate. Which means no significant reduction over the 30 year life of the program, even when your monthly credit grows to 6-Cents/kWh by year 30, for a NET credit of 2-Cents/kWh, assuming electric rates will NOT have increased over thirty years by more than 2-Cents/kWh, including fees & taxes. DREAM ON!
Duke’s Clean Energy Connection is a RIP-OFF!
Although, for QUALIIFIED (Low Income) it’s a bit better with a 5kW block credit of 5 x $9.35/KiloWatt-Month…whatever that really means in KiloWatt-Hours.
Anyhoo, assume it’s for the same 1,000kWh as for Non-Qualified subscriber, it yields 5 x $9.35/kW power block or $46.75, less the $41.75/mo subscriber fee for a NET CREDIT of only $5.00/month or $60.00/yr from year one to year 30. But, there’s no annual increase in rate credits. Which means an electric rate increase of 3.3% over a year or two will zero out the Net Credit in years thereafter and losses will mount.
A Better Alternative:
Putting 5kW worth of subscription fees or $501/yr into Duke stock (Ticker: DUK) will return $18.50 in annual dividends, increasing to $185.00/yr at year TEN when you have accumulated 50 shares of DUK worth $5,000 vs ZILCH for paying 10 years of debited subscriber fees at $501/yr for a trickle of savings, assuming no rate increases. At year 30, annual returns become $555/yr on $15,000 worth of accumulated shares of DUK.
Investing in $10,000 worth of US Treasury Series-I Savings bonds yielding 9.6% compounded (reinvested dividends) will grow to ~$168,000 in 30 years if the rate tied to inflation remains 9.62%.
Need I say more?