Ryan Nicol
The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) is unanimously advancing a series of plans to cut power costs for residential consumers amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Those plans were submitted by Florida Power & Light (FPL), Duke Energy Florida and Gulf Power. That cut will show up on customers’ May bills, and is driven by a drastic drop in energy prices.
Tampa Electric Co. customers will also see savings spread across several months.
“This is a truly a no-brainer for me, quite frankly, and I appreciate (the utilities) taking an early initiative to help their customers in such a time of need,” Public Service Commissioner Julie Brown said in approving the plans.
Companies would normally pass those fuel savings along to customers with slight reductions for individual monthly bills over a span of several months. But with many Floridians feeling the economic impact of the virus, several of those organizations pushed to bundle the savings into one chunk in May.
The move by FPL comes on top of an announcement earlier this year that a reduction in FPL’s operating costs would also trickle down to customers in the form of lower billing rates.
A 1,000-kilowatt-hour customer bill was nearly $100 in Dec. 2019. That same customer would pay just over $96 thanks to the cut — for a savings of nearly $4 per month.
But the May reduction due to the COVID-19 virus will add another 24% cut on top of that. The same 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill would now be approximately $73. That’s around 30% lower than the U.S. average, according to a study cited by the company.
A 1,000-kilowatt-hour customer of Duke will see his or her bill drop from $129.74 in May to $102.90. For Gulf Power customers, that drop will be from $140.43 to just $84.04.
FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy released a statement Tuesday thanking the PSC for swiftly giving the OK to the company’s plan.
“In quickly coming together to thoroughly review and approve this plan, our regulators, once again, demonstrated their continued commitment to watching out for customers’ best interests by returning savings to them as quickly as possible,” Silagy said.
“Traditionally, these types of savings are spread out over the balance of the year. However, challenging times call for exceptional measures. I believe this one-time bill decrease is the most effective way to infuse customers with much-needed money as we all navigate through this difficult and unsettling time together.”
FPL says business customers will also see a dip in May rates, though those will vary.
___
Material from the News Service of Florida was used in this post.
