Enterprise Florida Wants Out of Responsibility to Encourage Use of Solar Power

Enterprise Florida Wants Out of Responsibility to Encourage Use of Solar Power

Apr 05 - South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Florida may be the Sunshine State. But maybe not when it comes to courting business.

State legislators are working to relieve Florida's economic-development agency of responsibility for encouraging solar-power companies. The proposal (SB 1154, HB 931) cleared a Senate committee last week and is set for further consideration today.

The agency, Enterprise Florida, is supposed to attract solar-device manufacturers, promote projects that harness solar energy for commercial purposes and otherwise "assist in the expansion of the solar energy industry."

Despite Florida's trademark sunshine, solar-energy systems are relatively rare here, as nationwide. Floridians install about 15,000 solar water and pool heaters each year, as well as uncounted solar-powered emergency highway phones, road-sign lights and backyard lamps, according to industry groups. But conventional electricity has been convenient and cheap enough to limit interest in solar devices, which cut electric and heating bills but generally cost more up front than their conventional counterparts.

With oil prices up 67 percent from a year ago, the climate might seem right for cultivating solar-energy firms. But Enterprise Florida finds the obligation unwieldy.

"We do have limited resources and limited staff, and we need to focus on our core responsibilities -- economic diversity and creating high-wage jobs for Floridians," spokeswoman Erin Heston said.

Florida makes other attempts to promote solar power, though with less of a business-development focus. And legislators are floating several pro-solar plans, including an indefinite extension of a tax break on solar heaters and panels. Given those efforts, the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association -- a trade group for manufacturers and installers of solar devices -- doesn't mind being dropped from Enterprise Florida's to-do list.

"We're really getting a lot of exposure [from other initiatives]," Executive Director Bruce Kershner said.

But to another advocate, the state is proposing to do less when it should be doing more.

"Sooner or later, we're going to have to operate with much more [alternative] energy," said Philip Fairey, the deputy director of the Florida Solar Energy Center, a state-backed research organization. "If the state really wants to move actively toward what must be the future, then it doesn't make a lot of sense."

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