Thaddeus Williams, 75, is sifting through months of electric bills strewn across his kitchen table.
The single parent rents a 1920s two bed, one-bath home built in Tampa’s South Seminole Heights neighborhood, which he’s paid up to $340 to power for just one month.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
Williams is a retired veteran living off Social Security. Electricity is his second-highest expense after rent, he said.
Williams reads through the list of 10 or so charges on his Tampa Electric bill.
"What are all these charges? And what electricity [am I] pulling from fuel charges, from the clean energy?" he asked.
Like many Floridians, he pays for the fuel needed to make electricity. Plus, any clean energy upgrades, like putting solar panels online.
This brings up a huge debate happening across the state and beyond as energy bills continue rising: would shifting from fossil fuels to solar dramatically decrease the cost of electricity?
The answer is not as simple as you might think.
The cost of fossil fuel
Williams has paid as much as $58.67 for a month’s worth of fuel, and $6.62 for clean energy transition costs.
In Florida, “fuel” typically means natural gas, which is mostly made of methane.
It burns cleaner than coal or oil, but still pollutes the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases.
“We're breathing this stuff every day – this pollution,” Williams said. “And the stuff that we're paying for is help killin’ us.”
Plus, the cost is unpredictable, said Susan Glickman of the CLEO Institute, a nonpartisan climate organization.
"Hold on to your wallet because gas prices have always been volatile," she said.
Four years ago, natural gas prices doubled in the U.S. after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Glickman said 75%-90% of Florida’s power comes from natural gas. She'd like to see that completely replaced by solar energy.
"Solar is cheaper, and you're taking out the fuel cost,” Glickman said. “We could be doing so much better if there was a push to take advantage of the sunshine."
Issues with solar
Florida's major investor-owned utilities are bringing more solar online, but they say they won't rely on solar panels 100% of the time.
"It's only generating electricity when the sun is shining,” said Andrew Sutton with Florida Power and Light.
FPL, along with Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric use what's called a fuel mix, which includes things other than solar to stabilize the grid — primarily natural gas, and in some instances nuclear, oil, or coal.
On average, utilities get about 10% of their energy from solar. And even though they all have plans to expand, they say it will never be a primary source.
"If it's not natural gas, then it will be something else that does provide that 24/7 reliability,” Sutton said.
Solar could be stored in giant batteries to use 24/7, but Duke Energy’s Ana Gibbs said it would require a lot of land.
She said powering just 23,000 homes takes at least 500 acres of battery storage. Duke Energy serves two million homes across the state.
"Right now we absolutely have to have natural gas … until the technology catches up,” Gibbs said.
Glickman, with the CLEO Institute, doesn't agree with the utilities' arguments against relying totally on solar.
"It's in many ways sort of a propaganda, because we see many other countries meeting huge, significant portions of their energy need with solar,” she said. “And now with battery storage coming online at a reasonable cost, that's just simply not true anymore."
Germany and Japan, for example, are quickly growing their battery storage capacities. Although, both countries still use fossil fuels as part of their fuel mixes.
When asked if bringing more solar onto the grid actually lowers your energy bill, TECO's Cherie Jacobs said, “The answer is yes. It's reflected in fuel.”
So, the more solar utilities use, the less fuel they have to buy. It’s important to note that while customer fuel charges may go down, clean energy transition costs could go up at the same time.
More solar ≠ less fossil
Florida's consumer advocate, appointed by the legislature, said the adoption of solar by major utilities hasn't really played out the way people think.
"This utopia, where we're living in just a solar and renewable world, is just not reality,” said Walt Trierweiler with the Office of Public Counsel.
He said adding solar to the grid has sometimes increased fossil fuel usage, along with people's bills, because solar only works in the sunshine, leading utilities to burn more natural gas by adding combustion turbines.
"They're expensive, they burn a lot of fuel, but it's a way to bring up your power levels in a hurry or to address peak loads effectively,” Trierweiler said of combustion turbines.
What does this all mean? Fossil fuels are needed to meet the 24/7 demand right now, so solar is not necessarily replacing fossil fuels — it’s actually being used to expand the grid to provide more energy.
Solar could potentially replace fossil fuels, Trierweiler said, if battery storage is incorporated to meet the grid demands, but “it's been more expensive than traditional fossil,” he said. However, the price of battery storage has been coming down.
There’s also the option of rooftop solar for homeowners, but only if they can afford the expensive panels and installation.
Once they are in place, many only need to pay a base rate to utility companies to stay connected to the grid. That can be about $30 or less per month.
Federal tax incentives made it easier to afford the upfront cost of owning solar panels, but that program ended this year.
For renters like Thaddeus Williams, solar was never an option. His bill is directly tied to any decisions made by utilities and their regulators.
Being on a fixed income, he said he could really use what he pays in monthly charges for things like fuel and clean energy on other necessities.
"Put more food in our house. Put more gas in my car," he said.
For now, he has to make tough decisions to keep the lights on.
