Dive Brief:
- A Florida Senate committee has unanimously approved a bill to strike property taxes on solar panels installed at commercial and industrial facilities.
- The legislation, SB 90, implements a decision voters made last summer. The ballot initiative passed with almost 75% of the vote.
- Florida voters are embracing solar policy: the property tax bill had bipartisan support, while another measure seen as harmful to rooftop residential power failed to pass in the November election.
Dive Insight:
The Florida Senate Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee unanimously recommended adoption of SB 90, moving ahead with a mandate from voters to increase solar adoption. According to Florida Politics, the tax exemption would go into effect in 2018 and remain in place for two decades.
Many see the expansion of solar power as a way to grow clean energy jobs in the state. According to new data from The Solar Foundation, Florida saw solar employment gain 1,700 positions last year, growth of about 25%. The state's solar industry now employs more than 8,200 people.
In addition to solar panels, the property tax exemption would cover storage tanks, rock beds, thermostats and control devices, and heat exchangers, used for solar energy.
Amendment 4 had broad support and was uncontroversial compared with another solar issue Florida voters tackled last year. Voters also rejected a measure supported by utilities and widely-seen as potentially slowing growth of the state's solar industry.
That measure, Amendment 1, would have ensured that third-party ownership of distributed solar remained illegal, and many saw it as a way to enshrine utilities' monopoly over solar energy. It failed to garner 60% of the vote needed to pass.