2017-Sep-30

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-18/florida-you-cant-use-your-own-solar-panels-crisis

In Florida, You Can’t Use Your Own Solar Panels In A Crisis
by Tyler Durden — Sep 18, 2017 10:05 PM
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog

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When it comes to the U.S. economy, the “con” part offers the best description of the current relationship between business, government and the preyed upon consumer.

The way things work in early 21st century America is large businesses bribe politicians in a variety of ways at both the local and federal level, and the end result is laws that are designed to increase corporate profits at the expense of the wellbeing and freedom of the American public. Politicians end up with financial war chests to run their next campaign, while bureaucrats see a lucrative opportunity to swing through the ever spinning revolving door should they play ball with lobbyists and their patrons.

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FPL and its parent company, NextEra Energy, have for years heavily influenced state and local politics through donations, making billions in profits each year ($1.7 billion alone in 2016) thanks to favorable state laws that are sometimes literally written by the power company’s own lobbyists.

FPL’s lobbying wing has fought hard against letting Floridians power their own homes with solar panels. Thanks to power-company rules, it’s impossible across Florida to simply buy a solar panel and power your individual home with it. You are instead legally mandated to connect your panels to your local electric grid.

More egregious, FPL mandates that if the power goes out, your solar-power system must power down along with the rest of the grid, robbing potentially needy people of power during major outages.

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Once again, we find that Gooferment intervention in the free market makes the consumer / rate payer / taxpayer worse off by permitting Crony Capitalism to influence the political process.

Wonder if Tesla’s home power offering will “magically” be equally unacceptable!

Argh!

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