Last May, Florida enacted a law that removed climate change references from most national policies. It is explained as “Restores sanity in your approach to energy and rejects the underlying green enthusiast agenda.”
That has not stopped Sunshine State from becoming the national leader in solar power generation.
In the first Florida The Arched Past Last year, California was in terms of solar capacity with new utility scales connected to the grid. It built a massive 3 gigawatt solar in 2024, making it second only to Texas. And in the residential solar sector, Florida continued its long-standing leadership streak. According to data shared by energy consultant Wood Mackenzie, which is shared with Canary Media, the state ranks second only to California in the most rooftop panels installed each year between 2019 and 2024.
“Florida expects Florida to be second in 2025,” said Zoe Gaston, a leading US principal solar analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
Florida is expected to be neck and neck again with California in the second place spot for utility-scale solar installations this year, said Sylvia Leiva Martinez, a leading utility-scale solar analyst in North America.
Overall, the condition I’ll receive it According to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association, approximately 8% of that electricity comes from the sun. Most of that electricity comes from fossil gas.
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The state’s sun surge is a result of weather, both good and bad, and policies at the state and federal level have made the panel cheaper and easier to build.
“Clearly in Florida, Sunshine is very abundant,” said Zachary Colletti, executive director of the Florida chapter of the conservatives for clean energy. “We have a lot of that.”
The state is also facing an increasingly extreme storm. Of the $94 billion weather disaster Federal government data shows It has been deployed in Florida since 1980, with 34 occurring in the past five years.
“Floridians have long understood that sunlight is not only good for your pocket, but also good for your home’s resilience,” said Yoka Arditi Rocha, executive director of Cleo Institute, a Miami-based nonprofit advocate for climate action. “In the face of an increasing number of extreme weather events, being able to access reliable energy is a great motivation.”
Available tax credits She said that under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, or the IRA, they have made the purchasing panel cheaper than ever before.
“A lot of people have used it. I’m one of them,” Ardit-Rocha said. “As soon as I saw that the federal government would pay my taxes back 30%, I decided to invest and got a solar system that I could pay back seven years later. That was a good proposal for both parties.”
However, solar began to grow in Florida long before Democrats passed the IRA in 2022. That’s thanks to favourable national policies.
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Municipalities and counties have little to say about the power plant and ultimately manage the buildings and permits to the Florida Public Service Commission. Additionally, solar power plants with capacity less than 75 megawatts It’s exempted Reviews and fully permitted under the Florida Power Plant Sitting Act.
The latter policy in particular made building solar farms easier and cheaper for major utilities in the state, Leiva Martinez said. Companies such as Nextera Energy – Ond Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electrical utility, have put together gigawatts of solar on small farms over the years.
“You can see the wave of installations for this project on a gigawatt scale, but if you look at what’s actually built, it’s a small 74 megawatts [project] There’s a 74.9 megawatt project here or there,” she said. “It’s easy to allow in the state, and developers will find that they can maintain installations within this range and don’t have to go through a longer process.”
The solar build-out has spurred backlash in rural areas of the state. Bill Republican Senator Keith Truneau Submit Last month, we proposed to allow some local management permits for settlements and solar farms on farmland.
“You’re beginning to see people complaining more about the abundance of solar power in more rural areas,” Coletti said. The law said it would “add some hurdles and ultimately add costs,” but it does not necessarily mean that local permitting authorities would “reverse the national preemption.”
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Nextera and Florida Power & Light did not respond to emails requesting comment. Truenow did not return the call.
The bill is currently passing through Congress, but DeSantis previously rejected laws that threaten Florida’s solar build-out.
Governor in 2022 It’s blocked A bill supported by utility to end the state’s net measuring program. This will pay the homeowner for rooftop solar and send the extra power back into the grid during the day.
“The governor did the right thing by rejecting that bill that would have strangled Florida net meter and many rooftop solar industries,” Coletti said. “Floridans know it’s much better because they can offset costs very well and take more control and ownership of their households.”
a Telephone survey A Mason-Dixon poller in February 2022 found that out of 625 registered Florida voters, 84% support net metrics, including 76% of self-identified Republicans.
“It’s not left or right,” Arditi Rocha said. “That’s to make sure we meet the state’s name. In the state of sunlight, if we continue to harness the power of the sun, the future will really be sunny and bright.”
