Posts Taged florida

09
Mai

My Research: Political Barriers to Solar PV in Florida (2/3)

Thesis_Barriers_Solar_Florida

Note: This is Part 2 of a three-part series of blog posts that delve into the findings of my thesis research. Part 1 gave a top-level overview of the main findings. Part 3 will explore strategies at the county and city level to deploy more solar within the prevailing policy framework.

Policy and regulatory barriers to solar PV

In this post I will highlight the main policy and regulatory barriers to greater solar PV adoption in Florida based on conversations with 19 experts familiar with the solar industry in the state. My objective is to illustrate the areas of consensus and, at times, ardent disagreement among key stakeholders. I spoke to representatives from the utility sector, solar advocates and solar companies, municipal and county government officials, journalists and researchers as well as the commercial sector (click here to see more detailed breakdown).

To recap: in my previous post I introduced the following table detailing the main solar PV barriers evoked by the different interviewees. The remainder of the piece will dig a bit deeper into the barriers mentioned for which there is disagreement among experts and/or the expert interviews shed a different light on the importance of a specific barrier compared to my preliminary desk research.

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06
Mai

My Research: Political Barriers to Solar PV in Florida – Results (1/3)

Thesis_Barriers_Solar_Florida

Note: This is Part 1 of a three-part series of blog posts that delve into the findings of my thesis research. Part 2 and 3 will be released over the course of next weeks and will feature a more close-up look at the policy barriers and explore strategies at the sub-state level to deploy more solar.

Summary of Results

When it comes to solar PV adoption, Florida has been called many names: laggard, slow-mover, a big disappointment or outright hostile. In 2016, these characterizations faced their first test as two ballot initiatives about solar rights/restrictions and solar system tax treatment battled for the hearts and minds of Floridians, who saw themselves tossed in the middle of solar advocates on the one side and the utility camp on the other. The two ballot initiatives shined a light on a couple of high-profile policies such as solar leasing, net metering, solar charges and tax exemptions that co-determine the incentives to deploy more solar in the state. Still, there are a range of equally, if not more, consequential policies that shape the investment incentives that feature less prominently in the public’s mind but warrant greater attention.

This research takes a more comprehensive view at policies and aims to disentangle Florida’s political barriers to solar PV, defined as any legislative or regulatory disincentives to deployment, and assesses their respective weights in slowing greater solar adoption. Second, it explores the underlying reasons for their existence and, third, identifies strategies sub-state actors such as counties and cities use to stimulate solar within the existing state-level policy framework.

Thesis_Interviewees

Overall interviewee breakdown by sector (n=19)

In this endeavor, the theoretical and empirical literature on barriers to renewables provides a scaffold for a total of 19 semi-structured expert interviews with industry experts, and county-and city-level officials representing both sides of the argument. The interviewees provided their assessment of the biggest political obstacles and reasons underlying them, which are then presented in aggregate alongside the findings distilled from secondary research. County-and city-officials provided best practices in incentivizing deployment at their level of government.

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