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FPL Seeks Billions In Rate Increases
March 4, 2025
Florida Power & Light is seeking rate increases that will total billions over the next few years.
FPL is asking for rate increases of about $1.55 billion in 2026 and $930 million in 2027 due to “significant growth in our customer base over the last few years” with a quarter million new accounts, according to President and CEO Armando Pimentel. He said the growth has required “significant capital to meet the needs of these additional customers by building transmission and distribution infrastructure, including poles, wires, transformers, substations and other components”.
In addition the utility is seeking unspecified increases in 2028 and 2029 “to allow FPL to recover the costs of building and operating additional cost-effective solar and battery projects”.
The rate increase request was filed Friday with the Florida Public Service Commission.
“The last four years were unlike any in our recent history. Over this period, we experienced meaningful and unanticipated increases in inflation and interest rates, which rose by 21% and over 180%, respectively,” Pimentel said in the letter. “This, combined with significant migration to Florida, presented new challenges for FPL to navigate.”
FPL estimates that its proposal, along with projections for fuel and other costs, will grow a typical residential customer bill by an average annual rate of approximately 2.5% from January 2025 through 2029.
What does this mean for your bill?
An FPL customers in Northwest Florida using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month (many use more), the rate increases are expected to be:
• Current bill: $143.60
• 2026 bill: $147.10
• 2027 bill: $148.29
• 2028 bill: $149.93
• 2029 bill: $151.99
Beginning in 2027, FPL customers in peninsular and Northwest Florida will pay the same rates.
What’s next?
The rate increase filing begins an extensive public review process. The PSC will set hearings and provide other opportunities for input from customers prior to a decision by state regulators.
What does FPL say?
In a statement Monday, FPL said the propose rate plan will benefit customers:
- Delivering reliable service: FPL’s plan supports continued investments in the critical infrastructure and technologies that have 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 2.7 million customer outages in 2024 alone. This includes more than 800,000 avoided outages during Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton last year.
- Diversifying the ways FPL generates electricity: To continue to meet customer growth and increasing demand, FPL will make 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 more than $16 billion in fuel costs, including $1.1 billion through investments in low-cost solar energy centers. FPL’s non-fuel operations and maintenance costs per customer are the lowest among peer utilities, saving 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.
- New infrastructure for growth: FPL has added about 275,000 customers since 2021 and expects to add about 335,000 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. FPL works hard to diversify its supply chain and control costs for customers. Still, FPL is not immune to inflation. For example, since FPL last filed to adjust base rates in 2021, the cost of labor has increased by nearly 16%, wires and cables 30%, utility poles 49% and transformers 101% on average.
What about FPL shareholders?
The PSC allows a “range of return on equity” (ROE), a measure of business profitability for power companies in the state with set a midpoint. FPL’s current rate plan that expires at the end of 2025 includes a midpoint of 10.6%. FPL is requesting a midpoint return of 11.9%, which Pimentel said “reflects appreciably higher interest rate and other capital market factors expected during the term of the proposed four-year rate plan.”
Pictured: The Florida Power and Light First City Solar Energy Center near McDavid, online since 2023. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Comments
26 Responses to “FPL Seeks Billions In Rate Increases”
I am on social security and do NOT know if I will ever get another check so I can’t afford to spend any more on BASIC services – I wear a coat inside of the winter and as ;sweat inside during the summer since you monsters took over-my first bill was almost $100 more AND the low life governor is allowing you to have a monopoly – when he is gone and Dems get in YOU will be investigated
so enjoy ripping us off — your days are numbered
I did that…. DJT
Enough..the best thing they do is ask for rate increase. NO MORE INCREASES
With all the surcharges, fuel charges Kw char, etc – a company that can pay one man $10,000,000 a year doesn’t need a rate increase. What it DOES need is DOGE. Something isn’t kosher. As everything is going “Green” – where does all that fuel adjustment charge money go? If FPL is expanding their customer base – that equates to more profits. Yet we get handed an equipment bill? This is obscene! They literally operate at no company cost including equipment purchases and turn a massive profit. What happened to equipment purchases being deducted FROM the profits? This sounds like racketeering. If we gas a legislature that could find its back pockets with a flashlight – they’d look into this price gouging. We are already suffering from grocery high prices.
The money that FPL spends on commercials alone should be used to satisfy the money asked for. It’s not like FPL has competition in the power field. This is the most ridiculous request so far! Fire all the CEOs, quit wasting money on commercials, and let that money go back to the customers!
Tariffs on those imported solar panels have to be paid somehow . Fleeced again . Cloudy days ahead for solar panels so we can turn to wind farms . Clown show 101 .
Solar “farms” are consuming our agricultural lands at a rapid pace.
Keep bribing away the land on which our foods are raised and up go the costs at grocery stores and relying on “foreign” nations for our food supply.
Agree, this whole “GREEN” thing is a Scam and USA only causes a tiny fraction of the pollution. Other nations like China, Russia and India create many more tons of atmospheric pollution yet have no penalty.
Guess FPL is like the roaring furnace into which consumer monies are endlessly fed.
What Bob said.
BULL
All of this is from the monopoly that they have over FL and all of the bogus infastructure that they’re building. Everyone needs to be contacting local commissioners and up to the governor for this. No one can sustain this. It’s complete robbery and the state needs to step in and stop it.
This won’t go well with the public when they read: “significant capital to meet the needs of these additional customers”. Some math:
revenue = rate * customers = $/kWh * kWh = $
When customers increase, revenue already increases.
When customers and rate increase, revenue REALLY increases.
Just say, “We want more money.”
Charge new sub divisions customers $50 a month till New cost is paid for?
@ Bob
Most of the so called waste you talk about is grounded up for fertilizer at the solar locations
I cannot help from laughing at all the pictures of solar panels, and all the readers complaining about solar, and the cause for the rate increases is because of population growth and the inflation on wires, poles, and transformers to support all this growth in population.
Why didn’t growth pay user fees for the growth?
Free State of Florida? Ha! Hardly.
Because of subscriber growth?!? The whole point of building out transmission to serve more customers is that you’ll recover the build cost and make more than that over the life of the service to those customers. You don’t get the money back for that from rate increases. That’s just part of the business. I wish I was in EREC’s footprint. The hundreds of acres of solar fields along I-10 and all that Chinese made solar equipment is where you’re wasting and losing money for little to no result. Ruining perfectly good land. Get the money back from them. SCAM
First, all the climate change/green energy expenses are a scam. We cannot control the weather. Further, the business model for green energy is a financial dog. Second, look at all the waste generated by green energy that goes to the landfill—toxic materials that are not biodegradable.
Why does FPL get to spend money however they want on green energy initiatives without the feedback of paying customers? I continue to pay FPL, and they spend money on the next social justice cause that is not financially viable. This is what happens when you have a monopoly and no competition.
We are being financially robbed by FPL. We are a constant non-ending income stream for this company and they can do whatever they want…FPL is a scam.
FPL = Florida Plunder and Loot
It seems to me since day one this corporation has continued to do everything possible to literally break the very people that must support their greed !!! The people of Florida can not continue to be scammed !!! The money ain’t there !!! People are suffering now and need relief now !!! Unfortunately it’s obvious this company don’t care and always wants a rate hike. It’s got tii ok stop now and why hasn’t the governor done something ???
FPL executive salaries for 2023:
Armando Pimentel Jr.
President and Chief Executive Officer of FPL
$10,445,978
Charles E. Sieving
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal, Environmental and Federal Regulatory Affairs Officer of NextEra Energy and Executive Vice President of FPL
$6,298,845
John W. Ketchum
Chairman, President and CEO of NextEra Energy and Chairman of FPL
$19,780,098
Rebecca J. Kujawa
President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources
$11,768,946
I’ll be writing the Public Service Commission to oppose this rate increase. FPL needs to overhaul their top management. Stop advertising and stop solar power plants!
How can FPL be asking for rate increases when we see them giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities in their name. That is our money that they freely give away.
mnon YOU ARE RIGHT
Clearly the solar option is not cost effective and rather than ramming green down our throats, focus on natural gas or, better yet, turn the coal units back on!
The CEO of FPL was paid $10,000,000 in 2023, but this increase is due to growth. Growth of what? His salary?
Someone needs to tell them ‘no’.
The administration in DC has changed, so the green crap can stop. If they want to build it, fine, that should be on them.
Funny how they want money for this new infrastructure because the customer base has grown; doesn’t the increase in customers cover these new costs?
Kinda like when ERECs parent company was going to charge solar power users an extra fee because they weren’t using enough electricity.
This is not unique to FPL, it has become the norm for all utilities regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission, which tells me it ultimately falls back to our lawmakers in Tallahassee, who set PSC guidelines. They are the ones getting coerced by the utilities to change things so there is a never ending money train. I might add that all these neighborhoods you see going in pay to put in the roads, utilities, etc, not the county and FPL.
all the green stuff is a scam. All these fields taken over to build solar that was going to lower rates is a scam. Between now and then they will find a other things they will need to charge for, ie storms, cost of natural gas increases etc. It is rumored FPL wants our bills to be 3x what they are right now by 2030, I was even told they wanted every average household’s bill as close to $1,000 a month as possible. It has nothing to do with growth or development, just corp greed.
Isn’t it reasonable to think that all the new customers, who pay their bills, would provide the additional capital needed? It seems FPL isn’t subject to the same business practices that the rest of us are. They live in that rarified air where they just ask and receive more and more money.