Florida Power & Light Company notified the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) that it plans to file a formal request to set a new rate plan once its current base rate agreement concludes at the end of 2025.
The plan, covering 2026 through 2029, would enable FPL to continue to diversify the company’s electricity generation mix, protecting customers from fuel price volatility, and continue to deliver some of the country’s most reliable electricity to its 6 million customers, all while keeping bills as low as possible.
FPL estimates that its proposal, along with projections for fuel and other costs, would increase a typical residential customer bill by an average annual rate of approximately 2.5% from January 2025 through 2029. Importantly, even with the proposed rate adjustment, FPL bills would remain well below the national average and below many other Florida electric utilities. Customers will be able to calculate potential adjustments to their bill after FPL files its formal plan.
The customary process for setting new base rates takes about a year. FPL will submit a detailed four-year rate plan as early as February to the PSC, beginning an extensive public review process that includes numerous opportunities for input from customers prior to a decision by state regulators.
FPL’s current four-year rate plan concludes at the end of 2025. It was agreed to by the state’s consumer advocate and numerous environmental, business and customer groups and was unanimously approved by the PSC in 2021.
“FPL has a proven track record of delivering value for our customers – including diverse energy sources, high reliability and low bills,” said FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel. “While we know there is never a good time to request a rate increase, we need to continue to make smart investments in the grid and in new generation resources so we can continue to deliver reliable electricity, enhance resiliency and diversify our generation mix to power our fast-growing state. That is our never-ending commitment to our customers and that’s what this balanced plan does.”
Among the ways FPL’s proposed rate plan would benefit customers, according to the energy company:
- Delivering reliable service: FPL’s plan supports continued investments in the critical infrastructure and technologies that helped make FPL’s distribution service reliability 59% better than the national average and the best among major utilities in Florida. FPL’s technology investments have benefitted customers, with smart-grid devices helping speed restoration and avoid 1.8 million customer outages in 2023 alone. Smart-grid technology helped avoid 1.4 million outages during storms in the last three hurricane seasons.
- Diversifying the ways FPL generates electricity: FPL’s plan continues investments in low-cost solar and battery storage technology to complement its existing power plant fleet, which includes one of the nation’s largest natural gas fleets and safe, reliable nuclear power. Continuing to diversify the power generation fleet helps protect FPL customers from fuel price volatility.
- Keeping bills as low as possible: FPL continuously leverages the latest technology and relentlessly drives down costs to improve efficiency. Modernizing FPL’s power plant fleet has saved customers billions of dollars in fuel costs and investing in solar has saved customers more than $890 million in fuel FPL did not have to purchase. FPL’s non-fuel operations and maintenance costs per customer are nearly 26% lower than they were a decade ago, are the lowest among peer utilities and save customers about $2.9 billion per year compared to an average-performing utility – or more than $24 per month on a typical 1,000-kWh residential customer bill.
FPL has added about 275,000 customer accounts since 2021 and expects to add about 330,000 more through the end of 2029, which will require significant new generating capacity and distribution infrastructure to meet demand in one of America’s fastest-growing states.
The company said the proposed new four-year rate plan “will help FPL continue providing excellent service for customers every single day.”
FPL also said it is not immune to inflation. For example, since FPL last filed to adjust base rates in 2021, the cost of labor has increased nearly 11%, wires and cables 20%, utility poles 49% and transformers 101%.
Florida Power & Light Company added that it serves more customers and sells more power than any other utility, providing clean, affordable, reliable electricity to approximately six million accounts, or more than 12 million people.
