Florida is called the Sunshine State for a reason. Byron Donalds, the Republican running for governor, thinks using that sunshine for power is a passing trend.
"We are in the middle of the solar fad, and I'm going to call it a fad," Donalds said at a campaign event in Daytona Beach Shores last week, the Florida Phoenix reported.
He went on: solar arrays are "taking land out of production," and "you have some power in the day, no power at night, when most people are using electricity anyway. And so it's not consistent power."
Then the Phoenix called the companies that actually keep Florida's lights on. Every one of them is building more solar.
What Florida's utilities are actually doing
The Phoenix asked the state's three biggest investor-owned utilities about their plans:
- Florida Power & Light, the state's largest, got 11% of its energy from solar in 2025. Its current 10-year plan calls for 26% by 2035.
- Duke Energy Florida plans to add 12 solar sites and 900 megawatts of solar by 2027, and aims to get about 30% of the electricity it sells from solar by 2035.
- Tampa Electric got 12% of its energy from solar in the year ending June 2026, and expects about 17% next year.
Nationwide, the Phoenix notes, utility-scale solar capacity has grown 33% since 2025, according to federal Energy Information Administration data tracked by the SUN DAY campaign.
Why? Price. Solar panels that sold for $5 to $6 per watt around 2000 now cost about 12 cents per watt, according to an energy analyst the Phoenix quoted. For years, Florida environmentalists complained the state's utilities were behind on solar. They caught up, in large part, because it got cheap.
A "fad" doesn't get built into a power company's plans for the next decade.
The part he voted for
There's a reason FPL's solar plan isn't bigger. Its 2026 plan is 30% lower than the one it filed in 2025. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy blames the expiring federal solar tax credits, the Phoenix reported.
Those credits were cut by Trump's budget bill in 2025. Byron Donalds, then a congressman, voted for that bill on final passage. It passed the House 218 to 214.
So Donalds voted to pull federal support out from under solar in Florida, and is now pointing at solar as something that can't carry the state on its own.
Nothing about his "no power at night" line is new, either. Utilities plan around it. Florida's power still comes mostly from natural gas — nearly 75%, according to the state Public Service Commission — with solar and other renewables at 8%. Solar isn't replacing the grid. It's being added to it.
His alternative: reactors nobody is building
In the same Daytona Beach Shores speech, Donalds offered his own plan. "I believe that we need to be investing in small, modular nuclear reactors in Florida," he said. "We have to have a consistent power base."
The Phoenix asked the utilities about that too.
- FPL: small reactors "are not yet commercially available at scale or cost effective."
- Duke Energy Florida plans no nuclear buildout. Its 10-year plan is new solar and upgrades to existing plants. "Advanced nuclear overall is still a longer-term option."
- Tampa Electric is looking into them, but for now "the technology isn't commercially viable."
Florida lawmakers ordered a feasibility study in 2024, but a bill letting state regulators oversee advanced reactors passed the House 108 to 0 and stalled in the Senate.
So the candidate who calls the thing Florida's utilities are building a "fad" is promising the thing all three say isn't ready.
Why it matters for your bill
This is the man asking to run Florida's energy policy for the next four years. His Democratic opponent, David Jolly, told the Phoenix that "solar should be a part of Florida's future."
Donalds has made promises about your power bill before. When he said Florida's new data center law would keep those projects from raising your electric bill, PolitiFact rated it Half True — the law directs a process, not a result. And his party's EPA canceled a $7 billion program to put solar power within reach of lower-income households; a federal judge ruled that was illegal.
The bottom line
Byron Donalds told a Florida crowd that solar power is a "fad." Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric all plan to get more of their electricity from the sun over the next decade, with FPL and Duke aiming for 26% and roughly 30% by 2035. FPL's plan is 30% smaller than last year's, which the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy blames on expiring federal solar tax credits — cut by Trump's budget bill, which Donalds voted for. The small nuclear reactors he wants instead are ones none of the three has in its plans.
