Don’t overcharge solar users
Orlando’s goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050 is in jeopardy. As chair of the Clean Energy Team for the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Orange County, I urge the Orlando Utilities Commission to protect our future by retaining its current policy on net metering for customer-owned solar systems — and to recognize problems with other parts of the plan being proposed.
OUC should rethink its proposed new rates for residential customers and present fair policies for all.
Net metering is essential for both individual consumers and community resilience. Solar customers feed excess electricity onto the grid, which boosts energy reliability and helps to avoid the expense of building new transmission lines.
OUC’s proposed time-of-use rate would unfairly burden residents who cannot easily shift their energy use to off-peak hours. Consumers vulnerable to high energy costs include working families, low-income households, and 24-hour operations like nursing homes and hospitals.
OUC should incentivize rates that encourage energy savings without undue financial strain.
Additionally, the proposed new demand charge poses a challenge. These charges penalize users who exceed a threshold of energy usage in any 15-minute increments by placing them in a costlier category for the next 12 months. Because most residential customers do not have the knowledge to avoid higher charges, few electric utilities use demand charges with residential customers.
We urge the commission to listen to community members and stakeholders. To meet our renewable energy goals, we must maintain policies that encourage solar adoption and fair practices.
Mary Dipboye Winter Park
Florida is not a free state
Once again Ron DeSantis is using taxpayer money for false advertisement. “Free State of Florida” signs now welcome drivers to the Sunshine State. It’s not a free state when books are banned, history/climate change is whitewashed, districts are gerrymandered, politicians are for politics not the people, the homeless and immigrants are demonized, white kids are coddled, rents are out of control, conspiracy trumps facts, incompetent puppets are hired, science/ critical thinking is obsolete, authoritarian ideology is accepted over democracy and guns are more important than life itself. No, it’s not a free state, but a state of derelict and hateful people.
Katie Sanchez Orlando
Climate-change debate has been ongoing
Some points argued in the climate debate: It’s a hoax. Fake news! Evidence is inconclusive. Models are faulty. Climate is cyclical. Earth’s climate has always changed. It just snowed in (month) in (city). It’s bad this time but has nothing to do with humans. OK, humans play some part. Fine, it’s mostly our fault but it’s too late/costly to fix. Scientists will come up with something. We don’t have to do anything because God will handle it.
Florida’s latest move regarding textbooks sounds like a bad parody of a Disney movie: “We don’t talk about climate. No, no, no!” Less than 400 years ago, people were arrested for asserting that Earth revolves around the sun. I hope students will be around in 400 years to study our era.
Jack Crimmins DeBary
