May 9, 2023
As a follow up to our presentation at the April 24, 2023 SE CPAC meeting, JEA has shared the following information…
Good morning neighbors,
As a follow up to our presentation at the April 24, 2023 SE CPAC meeting, JEA has shared the following information…
Here are the answer to the questions I captured at the SE CPAC meeting.
Beaches Energy customers are able to sell their excess to the company at full retail, why does JEA pay full retail to their customers? Although solar is a clean power source, there are also challenges associated with integrating into the grid and using it as a resource in the same way we can with our generation fleet. The current technology requires supplemental resources to cover during the times solar is not producing for reliability. JEA is evaluating our policies around this and will continue to work on creating equitable solutions and pricing for all of our customers.
During hurricanes my neighbors solar panels were found on my front yard. What prevents JEA solar farms from ending up in the neighborhood? JEA currently purchases power from all of the utility scale solar farms in our community today. The developer of these farms have to meet all local design and building codes for these installations. To our knowledge we have lost a solar panel during a hurricane.
What is the net metering payback? We are evaluating our solar reimbursement policy to explore valuing the solar REC and allowing customer to sell that component if they wish to JEA. There are other complex components we are considering as we evaluate the current distributed energy reimbursement policy. If the question is asking in general a payback for a solar installation, there are many factors for any specific customer (shading, roof area, up-front cost, consumption) to provide a specific answer. Customers can use the WattPlan calculator tool to review potential financial outcomes. This can be found on the JEA website. JEA is working on a program for FY24 that will provide various services to our customers such as education and tools to evaluate solar.
What is the cost difference between Solar and Gas? Natural gas is approximately $41.69 MWh and Solar cost and average of $110.21 MWh.
What percentage of electricity is produced by solar? The current solar mix is ~2%.
JEA does not have any upfront cost for a solar customers, so why not give the more than the fuel cost to the customer? JEA is in the process of engaging in a comprehensive review of our Value of Solar. There are many complicating considerations in valuing the fair cost and benefits of solar not only for our community, but the electric system as well. A few examples include the technical system requirements to reliably integrate solar, distribution grid costs to support a large adoption of solar energy, rooftop versus utility scale capacity factors for solar, power delivery costs, potential rate implications of solar.
What rebates does JEA offer for Solar? Historically JEA has not offered a rebate for customers installing solar, but we do reimburse for the energy they provide all of JEA customers.
Why doesn’t JEA partner with customers and install Solar for residents and non profit organizations? There are many different options to explore on this topic. JEA is committed to providing reliable service at a reasonable cost to all of our customers. In general, utility scale installations have been more cost competitive relative to solar, but we are dedicated to evaluating options for all our customers.
Here is the website that has a checklist to evaluate if solar is right for you. https://www.jea.com/environment/private_solar/ this link will get you to the WATTPLAN Calculator.
Thank you,
