FPL Group Inc. owns the world's largest solar thermal facility, but it is not in the Sunshine State. In fact, FPL Group, which is the state's largest energy provider through its utility, Florida Power & Light Co. - generates no renewable energy in Florida.

Though FPL Group's wholesale energy subsidiary, FPL Energy, is the country's largest generator of wind power and a leading solar-power player, the energy Florida Power & Light produces in Florida comes from four nuclear reactors, one coal and 10 natural gas or gas/oil hybrid plants.

For years, the utility has said solar is not an economical option because there is not enough sunshine or land. Likewise, there is not enough wind to spin a turbine.

That thinking is about to change, and business for FPL - and all of the state's energy providers - will never be the same. Gov. Charlie Crist's pledge to lower greenhouse-gases is forcing Florida's utilities to go green.

Today, less than 1 percent of all energy produced in Florida comes from renewable energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, ocean and geothermal. But by as soon as 2020 or as late as 2050, at least 20 percent of energy sold in Florida must be renewable.

"The way of the future is going to be different than today," said Jim Fenton of the Florida Solar Energy Center. Power plants will be smaller, cleaner and, best of all, the fuel will be free, he said.

As the politics of going green play out in hearings before Florida regulators, eyes are on Florida Power & Light and how the utility with more than 4.5 million customer accounts intends to meet the new renewable rules debated last month in Tallahassee.

At stake, hundreds of millions - even billions - of dollars to build green power plants. Investor-owned utilities, such as Florida Power & Light, must worry about their shareholders. Its parent company, Juno Beach-based FPL Group (NYSE: FPL), is publicly traded. Regulators must weigh the cost of going green to consumers against the cost to the environment.

"The bottom line is, how much can the back of the ratepayers take?" J.R. Kelly, general counsel for the state Public Service Commission, said in his opening remarks at a hearing last month.

"I think the PSC is overly concerned with containing costs to the detriment of providing any real incentive for clean renewable energy," said George Cavros, a representative of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "The PSC doesn't apply this kind of cost containment to nuclear."

Florida Power & Light is working to secure permits to build two more nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point plant in Miami-Dade County at a cost of $12 billion-$18 billion, and upgrade two reactors at its St. Lucie County plant.

Utility starts making moves

FPL's green effort suffered a blow in July when the PSC shut down its Sunshine Energy Program. Customers donated $9.75 a month to help the utility develop green energy in Florida. But a Texas company hired to run the program spent most of the money on marketing and administrative costs.

Florida's green initiative began on July 13, 2007, when Gov. Crist, flanked by California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed an executive order mandating a state renewable energy standard. Crist's order called for standards that require utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewables - "with a strong emphasis on solar and wind."

FPL immediately questioned its own ability to meet the standard: "If nuclear is included, there may be a way to meet those goals, but if nuclear is not included, it's going to be a big challenge," said Florida Power & Light spokesman Mayco Villafaña after the press conference.

Two months later, FPL Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lew Hay III joined former President Bill Clinton and officials from solar-thermal developer Ausra Inc. and Pacific Gas & Electric in New York to announce FPL Group's commitment to spend up to $1.5 billion on renewable energy in Florida and California.

The centerpiece in Florida would be a 10-megawatt demo solar thermal plant, followed by a 300-megawatt plant. The price: $900 million. FPL planned to use technology developed by Ausra, an Australian company, whose investors include Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems Inc.

Today, the deal is dead.

"The truth of the matter is, we did a full evaluation and we weren't satisfied they (Ausra) would be the best company to go forward with," said Eric Silagy, FPL vice president and chief development officer.

FPL changed its tack after lawmakers passed a sweeping energy bill in April. That bill enables utilities to pass along the cost of building a renewable energy plant to its customers - with one exception: After 110 megawatts of renewable energy has been built in Florida there, will be no more reimbursements.

The new law went into effect July 1. Florida Power & Light filed a request May 16 to be reimbursed for the cost of building three solar plants in Florida. The total output: 110 megawatts. On July 15, regulators approved FPL's request to build: $688 million.

FPL touts nuclear as green

Other utilities, now precluded from recovering building costs, did not want to comment on FPL's swift move. Gulf Power, in Pensacola, will "continue to look for other avenues to recover costs," said marketing manager Bob McGee.

Progress Energy is "monitoring the situation," spokesman C.J. Drake said.

The 100 megawatts of solar is 0.4 percent of FPL's 25,000-megawatt capacity - far below Crist's 20 percent target.

If regulators allow nuclear power to be included in the definition of renewable energy, FPL could count the power produced by its two nuke plants in Florida.

That would put FPL's renewable energy production around 19.4 percent - within a fraction of the governor's target.

During a hearing last month in Tallahassee, FPL officials again tried to convince regulators that nuclear power is green.

To avoid a debate over whether nuclear energy is renewable, FPL wants to change the name of the proposed rules from "Renewable Portfolio Standard" to "Clean Energy Portfolio Standard."

"I think it's kind of laughable," said John Burges of the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy. "They want to change the definition. ... I would be flabbergasted if that happened."

No states include nuclear power in their definition of renewable energy. Neither does the Energy Information Administration or National Research Energy Lab of the U.S. Department of Energy. The International Energy Agency also excludes nuclear power from its definition of renewable energy.

Florida's new energy bill says nothing about nuclear power being a source of renewable energy.