Net metering is a two-way electric meter. When you buy electricity from the grid (FPL), the meter moves in one direction. When you sell electricity to the grid, the meter moves in the other direction.
It was my understanding that when FPL buys electricity from someone who has it to sell (like someone who produces his or her own electricity with solar panels), it pays less for the electricity it buys than it charges for the electricity it sells. This turns out not to be true, for the moment. For some reason, FPL buys for the same price as it sells. This would sound like a system whereby FPL couldn't make any money, except for the fact that only a tiny proportion of the population produce electricity to sell to FPL. FPL make their money on everyone else. And this arrangement is about to come to an end.
It turns out that one Florida legislator (Senator, if I remember correctly from the radio story I heard today) has introduced legislation that would allow FPL to pay producers only the amount it would have cost FPL to produce the electricity it no longer has to sell to the consumer, because the consumer is producing his or her own electricity.
I have to say that as much as don't like this, because it means I won't be able to continue to pay $10.05 a month, every month of the year, I must admit there's something fair about this proposed/impending new arrangement. The old/current (excuse the pun) arrangement actually sounds a bit stupid, although it's compensated for by the minimum bill, even if I use zero net monthly electricity. FPL still has to produce electricity, for me, too, when the sun isn't shining, and it has to have and protect the infrastructure to get it to me.
Of course, the alternate reasoning could well be that I'm already taking care of FPL by producing so much electricity that I'm way behind, and FPL is getting from me plenty of electricity it then sells to someone else. But still, if it pays me the same amount it then charges someone else, then it's not making the profit it would need. The Florida Public Service Commission should be monitoring this, to make sure FPL makes the profit it needs, but a fair and not excessive profit, but in a far right wing state like Florida, it's unlikely the PSC makes decisions that are protective and in the interests of consumers.
Also, and remembering the far right political leanings of this state, it's most likely that this move is intended to inhibit consumers from installing solar panels, because once a rule like this takes effect, those solar panels are of significantly less value to the consumer who paid for them. Or to look at it the other way around, it will take a lot longer to pay yourself back for the cost of the panels. But still, you do save something, and you do decrease the need to burn non-renewable sources of energy -- you feel more like a solution than like a problem, if feeling like a solution instead of feeling like a problem is your thing. And those non-renewable sources of energy are going to be depleted and go away at some point anyway (in case you ever wondered why they call them non-renewable). If you're like an ostrich, and you keep your head buried far enough in the sand, you can try to ignore that reality for a while longer. Although with water tables rising, you can't keep your head buried too deep.
So, part of the party -- part of my party -- might at some point be over, maybe before too long. But it won't all be over. Am I going to have to pay $15-$20 a month, instead of $10 a month? So what? It's a lot less than the up to $150 a month I used to pay during the summer months, of which there are around five or six per year here.
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