The transition to renewable energy, alongside increasing energy efficiency, is a critical strategy for reducing GHG emissions. On April 21, 2021, Resolution 2021-34664 was adopted declaring climate change to be caused by human activity and pledging to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The City of Miami Beach has an extensive legislative history of adopting policies that support communitywide GHG emissions reduction. The City’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory, which has the baseline year of 2014, continuously indicates that most of the emissions community wide are from energy consumption in buildings and the built environment. Economic benefits of installing rooftop solar include local job creation and the development of the local solar market.
The following outlines information and efforts that the City has underway with respect to solar, energy reduction and energy efficiency. In addition, staff is developing a Climate Action Plan with goals and actions to achieve the targets.
Incentivizing Solar
In 2019, Miami Beach received the Solsmart Gold designation for its efforts to remove existing barriers and lower soft costs. Solsmart is a national agency that certifies local governments as having regulations that facilitate the installation of solar panels.
Miami Beach Convention Center Solar Estimate
At the October 13, 2021 City Commission meeting, a discussion was held regarding solar power energy on the roof of the Convention Center. The City obtained a market research estimate for installing solar at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The estimated cost for two solar arrays, in the form of carports, is approximately between $10-15 million. This could power 17% of the existing electrical needs of the Convention Center with solar energy. This could be saving of close to $27,000 per month.
SolarTogether Program
A participant in the Florida Power and Light SolarTogether program pays a monthly subscription rate in addition to their monthly electric bill. As part of the program, each participant receives a credit on their monthly bill based on the amount of electricity produced by the solar farm in proportion to the total amount, in kW, of their subscription. Over time, as the monthly credit increases, the net cost of participating in SolarTogether decreases. The City of Sarasota enrolled in the SolarTogether program to offset 100% of its municipal electricity consumption.
Solar Policy in Florida
There are several state policies that have an impact on the solar market and present barriers to solar installations in Florida. Many programs and policies which have been implemented successfully in other states and regions of the country are preempted in the state of Florida, including shared renewable energy, community choice aggregation, and power purchase agreements.
During this State legislative session, net-metering bills were passed and are currently waiting to be presented to the Governor. House Bill 741 passed the full House on March 2, 2022 in a vote of 83 to 31. Senate Bill 1024 was substituted with its House counterpart and passed on March 7, 2022 in a vote of 24 to 15. These net-metering bills revise the current policy to reduce the amount of credit that electric utilities pay net-metering customers among other changes. These bills impact the economic outlook of installing solar and the length of time to achieve return on investment.
Energy Assessment
Energy efficiency is the first step to reducing emissions and is an important step before installing on-site renewable energy. The City has been making steady progress and in February of 2022, was recognized by the Miami-Dade County BE305 program as the “Municipal building with the most energy savings” Awards Ceremony.
Additionally, the City has contracted AECOM to perform an energy assessment of municipal buildings with the objective to lower energy bills, decrease operations and maintenance costs and increase occupant comfort. AECOM will perform an energy audit of the City’s energy consumption and expenditures, prioritize facilities to be assessed, and perform energy audits in the identified buildings. AECOM will deliver five energy efficiency strategies/projects for the City to implement internally.
Options and Next Steps
To accurately understand the feasibility, costs, and energy savings potential of solar on its municipal buildings, the City needs to determine the total amount of electricity that could be powered by solar locally. Potential steps and options include:
· Implement the energy assessment (underway with expected completion late 2022)
· Establish a budget and procurement process for a solar feasibility study within the FY 2022-2023 budget process; and
· Examine the SolarTogether program