Solar in Florida

Florida's net metering is established through Public Service Commission rules rather than statute, which is what made the 2022 legislative end-run (HB 741) significant — and its veto consequential. The current framework requires investor-owned utilities — Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric, and Gulf Power — to credit exported solar at the full retail rate, with annual true-ups. Customers retain this treatment for the life of their interconnection, though the political risk of a future rollback is the single largest policy uncertainty in the state.

The state's two tax exemptions are codified and stable: the sales tax exemption for solar equipment and the property tax exemption for renewable energy source devices. Both apply automatically at purchase and assessment, requiring no separate application. Florida has no SREC market and no state rebate program of note, so the incentive stack is deliberately simple — federal credit plus the two tax exemptions.

Because there is no state income tax, the federal ITC is the only tax-credit lever. HOA restrictions are limited by the Florida Solar Rights Act, which prohibits deed restrictions that prevent solar installation, though aesthetic rules around panel placement survive in some communities. The net effect is a low-friction, high-sun market whose main risk is legislative rather than economic.

Florida's 5.8 peak sun hours reflect consistently strong year-round production with minimal seasonal swing, a rarity in the continental US. The southern tier — Miami–Dade, Fort Myers, the Keys — clears 6.0, while even the panhandle around Pensacola and Tallahassee holds above 5.4. The main production drag is summer afternoon thunderstorm activity, which can clip peak output on otherwise hot, bright days, and the occasional tropical system that clouds the state for days at a time.

Because Florida retains full retail net metering, the sizing logic mirrors the classic model: maximize annual kilowatt-hours with a south-facing, latitude-tilted array. There's no penalty for overproducing, so sizing 10–15% above current consumption to account for future EVs or a pool pump is sensible. The state's dominant load — air conditioning — peaks in the afternoon and aligns naturally with solar output, meaning a well-sized system offsets a large share of the summer bill directly.

A practical Florida wrinkle is wind load. Hurricane-zone permitting requires racking and attachment engineered to Miami–Dade or Florida Building Code wind standards, and some HOAs have aesthetic restrictions (though state law bars outright solar bans). These structural requirements can modestly increase installed cost but don't change the production fundamentals.

At $2.80/W, Florida is the least expensive of the major solar markets — a typical 8 kW system runs about $22,400 before incentives. The state layers two tax exemptions on top of the 30% federal credit: solar equipment is exempt from the 6% sales tax (an immediate ~$1,300 saving on an 8 kW system) and from property tax assessment (so the improvement doesn't raise your tax bill). With no state income tax, there's no state credit, but the sales-tax exemption effectively functions as an upfront discount.

The payback math is among the best in the country at roughly 11.8 years for an 8 kW array, driven by the convergence of low cost, excellent sun, and full-retail net metering. A south Florida household with high air-conditioning load can pay back faster still, since each offset kilowatt-hour replaces expensive peak-summer power. The relative simplicity of the financial case — no battery required, no special buyback plan to shop for — is part of what has made Florida one of the fastest-growing residential markets.

Batteries remain optional here rather than economic necessity. For homeowners who add them, the justification is resilience: keeping critical loads running through multi-day post-hurricane outages. That value is real but harder to quantify, and most Florida systems are still installed grid-tied-only to preserve the strong payback.