Gainesville, FL Ratepayers Demand Biomass Refund

Dozens of demon­stra­tors gath­ered in front of Gainesville City Hall on August 2 to demand that Gainesville Region­al Util­i­ties (GRU) repay $15 mil­lion to ratepayers—$194 per household—for high elec­tric rates asso­ci­at­ed with the con­struc­tion of the Gainesville Renew­able Ener­gy Cen­ter (GREC), a 100-megawatt bio­mass incin­er­a­tor sched­uled to go online in 2013. Pro­test­ers accused the util­i­ty of over­charg­ing ratepay­ers to cov­er future costs of acquir­ing wood for the incin­er­a­tor, despite a decrease in the utility’s cur­rent fuel costs.

One pro­test­er, reg­is­tered nurse and Gainesville res­i­dent Deb­bie Mar­tinez [pic­tured above], also asked the Alachua Coun­ty Com­mis­sion on August 14 to request that the City of Gainesville and GRU “return the two years in elec­tric­i­ty over­charges to GRU cus­tomers” and to cease the over­charg­ing. “$15 mil­lion dol­lars in over­charges is approx­i­mate­ly $194 for every fam­i­ly, many who are strug­gling to put food on the table and pro­vide med­i­cine for their loved ones,” said Martinez. 

In April 2012, Gainesville Cit­i­zens CARE filed a law­suit in Flori­da Cir­cuit Court to annul a thir­ty year, $3 bil­lion Pow­er Pur­chase Agree­ment con­tract between GRU and devel­op­ers Amer­i­can Renew­ables. The law­suit asks that “the con­tract nego­ti­at­ed behind closed doors in vio­la­tion of the Sun­shine Law be declared void and with­out legal effect.” The Sun­shine Law is a 1967 Flori­da statute man­dat­ing gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy. Changes alleged­ly made in secret, with­out pub­lic dis­clo­sure, include an exten­sion of the con­tract from 20 to 30 years, a cost increase of 25%, and the removal of a “back door out clause” that would’ve allowed “the con­tract to be can­celled after its last reg­u­la­to­ry approval and before the com­mence­ment of construction.” 

In a Gainesville Sun opin­ion piece on August 10, Gainesville attor­ney Ray Wash­ing­ton wrote that if the Pow­er Pur­chase Agree­ment stands, by 2013 it will “require GRU to begin pay­ing GREC dou­ble the mar­ket rate for elec­tric­i­ty. This is an eco­nom­ic shock this com­mu­ni­ty does not need and can ill afford.” Wash­ing­ton also con­demns the GRU “over­charges,” stat­ing they “rep­re­sent mon­ey tak­en, with­out explic­it legal author­i­ty, from already strapped GRU ratepayers.”


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