FLORIDA — Florida Power and Light (FPL), a subsidiary of NextEra, continues to receive a high grade, according to the Sierra Club’s 2023 Dirty Truth Report released on Oct. 1. FPL received a B because of their commitment to retire 100% of their coal generation by 2030 and replace 35% of their fossil generation with clean energy, while adding 0 MW of new gas. However, this report does not take into account FPL’s issues regarding energy injustice and how the utility continues to burden Florida’s most economically vulnerable families with high rates and a lack of access to energy efficiency programs.

“Florida Power & Light has certainly earned a high B grade for its retirement of all coal in the state of Florida, no new plans for fracked gas, and an ambitious plan to scale up solar and storage over the next decade,” said Susannah Randolph, for the Sierra Club. “While FPL gets good marks for its plans to transition away from fossil fuels and ramp up renewable energy, it falls short of an A grade for a glaring lack of energy efficiency programs that would do a lot to ease high energy burdens for Florida’s most economically vulnerable families. It’s especially frustrating that a company as big and as technologically advanced as FPL will not invest in programs that will lower energy demand in a way that will help struggling families”

Since the passage of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, only 30 utilities featured in the report have filed updated planning documents, and they received a score of 27/100, just one point higher than the average for all utilities. If utilities fully utilize the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, they could save households hundreds of dollars in annual energy costs, create good paying jobs, and reduce climate pollution for all communities.

FPL scored 67 points, receiving a B for its “Real Zero” plan. This shows progress compared to a score of 56 last year. FPL is one of the leading utilities in transitioning to clean energy, with the 8th highest score of the 77 utilities scored in this report. As part of their “Real Zero” commitment to eliminate carbon emissions by 2045, FPL plans to bring over 15,000 MW of clean energy online by 2030. This buildout is enough to replace about a third of FPL’s existing fossil generation, meaning it will need to triple this amount to achieve full replacement. This is a significant improvement from last year, when FPL had plans for a clean energy buildout that would replace only 16 percent of its fossil generation.

While NextEra’s “Real Zero” commitment and accompanying plan is ambitious, there are missing elements to the plan including:

• Details on how the plan will incorporate energy efficiency to address high energy burdens.

• Incorporation of customer-owned rooftop solar into the plan.

• Assessment of how NextEra’s involvement in Mountain Valley Pipeline contradicts the plan.

• Specifics on how NextEra will define green hydrogen to make sure it is a true climate solution, not greenwashing.

Moving forward, Florida Power and Light should incorporate these missing elements into its planning, continue to expand its clean energy buildout, and avoid new gas moving forward.

The Sierra Club’s annual Dirty Truth Report analyzes the plans of 77 utilities owned by 50 parent companies and assigns scores and grades to the utilities based on three criteria: plans to retire polluting coal plants, whether they plan to build new gas power plants, and the scale of their investment in clean energy through 2030. In an interactive webpage, users can see their utility’s score and what progress–if any–the utility has made toward transitioning to cleaner, more affordable energy.

Although clean energy is less expensive than 99 percent of existing coal and new gas generation, only 20 of the 77 utilities have plans to be entirely coal-free by 2030. Combined, these 77 utilities are planning to build 53 gigawatts of new gas plants through 2030, nearly 40 percent more than was planned last year.