It’s green, obviously. As in green energy, the cash cow that the Florida Public Service Commission finally slaughtered yesterday (July 29). For years, Florida Power and Light has been able to divert money ($9.75/month) collected from nearly 39,000 eco-minded customers (like me) in Florida to research and marketing at an energy contractor in Texas by the name of Green Mountain Energy. According to FPL,

Choosing Sunshine Energy is one of the most important things you can do to reduce air pollution. In just one year as a Sunshine Energy customer, you can avoid more than 10,800 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions nationwide – that’s equal to as much as a car would produce in almost 12,000 miles of driving, recycling 26,625 aluminum cans or recycling 4,326 pounds of newspaper.

Since the program’s inception in 2004, the more than 38,000 FPL customers choosing the Sunshine Energy program have helped avoid more than 756 million pounds of CO2 emissions from being released into the environment. That’s comparable to removing 67,000 cars from the road today! And thanks to our customers, Sunshine Energy is the largest green power program in the Southeast.

Doesn’t that sound lovely? And if you believe Green Mountain, Sunshine Energy “ensures that 1,000 kWh of electricity is produced by cleaner generation facilities, such as bioenergy and wind,” but–here’s the kicker!–these facilities serve Florida “and other states nationwide.” In other words, Florida’s contribution is greenbacks, and other states get green energy. According to the Sun-Sentinel and the Florida Public Service Commission, most of the reductions in CO2 emissions occurred by buying credits from out of state:

FPL officials acknowledge that three quarters of the $11.4 million collected from customers since 2004 went to administrative, marketing and management expenses, according to a commission report. Much of the rest of the money went to buy renewable energy credits from companies outside Florida. ….

Sunshine Energy ranks in the Department of Energy’s top five green energy programs by size. But it fell behind in a requirement that it develop 150 kilowatts of solar capacity for every 10,000 residential customers enrolled in the program. By the end of 2005, when more than 20,000 customers were enrolled, FPL did not have any new solar projects completed, according to a PSC report. By the end of 2007, it had 37,184 participants and projects with 319 kilowatts of solar energy — enough to power 44 homes.

These are good statistics, but they fail to capture the public’s outrage, to say nothing of that of the PSC. As is frequently the case, the Miami Herald has the best article about this issue. Their reporter, John Dorschner, notes that one of the commissioners, Nathan Skop, actually worked on alternative energy projects in the past for a sister company of FPL, and even he (Skop, not Dorschner) is appalled at the mismanagement of this particular program:

Commissioner Skop, who once managed nine renewable energy projects for a sister company of FPL, complained on Tuesday that millions of customers’ contributions had fallen “into a black hole where there is no transparency. . . . Clearly this is not right.”

Skop said he thought FPL should be forced to pay back the millions spent on administrative expenses by contributing to a new renewable program.

I knew that I could expect little return on my monthly investment of $9.75. I participated in the program because I wanted to demonstrate that there was enough popular support for alternative energy to make it a viable path for innovators. Unfortunately, the innovations that were occurring were in marketing and “research,” rather than in proven technology that already exists that could actually provide power.

Projects like the solar array at Rothenbach Park, in Sarasota, which apparently provided the entirety of FPL’s renewable energy investment inside Florida. (You’ll notice that FPL actually describes it as “Sunshine Energy’s largest facility!” This implies that (1) it is large (how naive does FPL think we are? They actually tout the fact that the array “Covers half a football field!”), and (2) there are others (there are not).

I’m looking forward to my rebate from FPL for having perpetrated this particular fraud, while at the same time expecting to get kicked in the teeth by the new mandatory contribution of $8/month for actual alternative energy construction in Florida.