FP&L's 'Sunshine Energy program and "green pricing."

FP&L's "green pricing" policy is gradually picking up customers, The Miami Herald reports.

For $9.75 a month, clients can sign up for FP&L's 'Sunshine Energy program, which puts electricity generated from green sources (wind, solar, and other renewable alternatives) onto the national power grid. Since the company launched the program in 2004 more than 32,000 customers have signed on. For every 10,000 customers who sign on FPL adds 150 kilowatt of solar-generated power to the grid, the company says.

The utility broke ground on a planned 250-kilowatt solar array in Sarasota earlier this month and should finish by summer, according to David Bates, who manages the Sunshine Energy program.

He's also looking for another place in the state to build an additional 150-kilowatt array in Florida.

Nationwide, green pricing programs began cropping up in the early-to-mid-1990s. In 1997, there were 20 programs with 66,000 customers participating, though none in Florida, according to the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory, based in Golden, Colo. Today, 750 utilities nationwide offer some sort of way to put renewable energy on the grid, and about 400,000 people have signed up. Florida has five utilities offering programs: FPL, Gulf Power, Tampa Electric and the municipal utilities of Jacksonville and Orlando.

Click here for more from The Miami Herald.

Click here to learn more about FPL's Sunshine Energy program.

- David Adams